TOWARDS A NEW CULTURAL APPROACH: YUNNAN PROVINCIAL MUSEUM
By MS. Liu SHENG YU
A Independent Study Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for Master of Arts Architectural Heritage Management and Tourism (International Program) Graduate School, Silpakorn University Academic Year 2017 Copyright of Graduate School, Silpakorn University
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โดย MS.Liu Sheng Yu
การคน้ ควา้ อสิ ระนเี้ ป็ นสว่ นหนงึ่ ของการศกึ ษาตามหลักสตู รศลิ ปศาสตรมหาบัณฑติ สาขาวิชาการจัดการมรดกทางสถาปัตยกรรมกับการท่องเที่ยว แบบ B แผน ข ระดับปริญญามหาบัณฑิต บัณฑิตวิทยาลัย มหาวทิ ยาลัยศลิ ปากร ปีการศกึ ษา 2560 ลขิ สทิ ธขิ์ องบัณฑติ วทิ ยาลัย มหาวทิ ยาลัยศลิ ปากร
TOWARDS A NEW CULTURAL APPROACH: YUNNAN PROVINCIAL MUSEUM
By MS. Liu SHENG YU
A Independent Study Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for Master of Arts Architectural Heritage Management and Tourism (International Program) Graduate School, Silpakorn University Academic Year 2017 Copyright of Graduate School, Silpakorn University
Title Towards a New Cultural Approach: Yunnan Provincial Museum By Liu SHENG YU Field of Study Architectural Heritage Management and Tourism (International Program) Advisor Supot Chittasutthiyan
Graduate School Silpakorn University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Master of Arts
Dean of graduate school
(Associate Professor Jurairat Nunthanid, Ph.D.)
Approved by
Chair person
(Assistant Professor CHOTIMA CHATURAWONG , Ph.D.)
Advisor
( Supot Chittasutthiyan , Ph.D.)
External Examiner
(Professor Alici Antonello , Ph.D.)
D
ABST RACT 59056301 : Major Architectural Heritage Management and Tourism (International Program) Keyword : New cultural approach, Cultural creativity, Yunnan Provincial Museum, SWOT, Management, Local community MS. LIU SHENG YU : TOWARDS A NEW CULTURAL APPROACH: YUNNAN PROVINCIAL MUSEUM THESIS ADVISOR : SUPOT CHITTASUTTHIYAN, Ph.D. Abstract: As a repository, museum collects the memories, the glories, the identities and the value of generations, communities and countries, which has witnessed the ups and downs of human beings for several centuries, and as a culture institution, museum is responsible for spreading the culture and keeping the culture heritage forward to the future and the future generations, which are the missions of museum.
Over the past decades, changes in cultural heritage field and museum circle as well are beyond description, and the dynamic weather in culture field day and night also drives shifts of museums. Meanwhile, the recognition of people and citizens to know their cultures and to seek their identities as well boosts the evolutions in culture heritage field, where “people” is becoming an influential factor in culture industry and museum management. In addition, globalization situation in a way quickens the changes in this filed which results in rethinking the culture conservation, culture spreading, culture model and sustainable culture development, and in exploring innovation and fresh air in both culture heritage and museum circle. Thus, the museum currently is not anymore a repository with single function, but is given more and more meanings and functions which could be an entertained place for both children and adults, could be a coffee bar to relax and to gather for families and friends, and also could be an educational institution.
When it comes to Yunnan Provincial Museum, it also has experienced the shifts and ups and downs in the dynamic situation, and has been exploring its new cultural approach with its new look since the relocation and renovation in 2015.
This paper is going to study the existing Yunnan Provincial Museum focusing on its management aspect and providing the background information of Yunnan Provincial Museum, coupled with local culture to present a comprehensive national museum in Yunnan province, then based on the study to analyze the SWOT of Yunnan Provincial Museum through which is going to propose possible and practical proposals for the museum to improve the management and to enhance the connection with local community and culture.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The achievement of this independent study was filled with the assistance of many people. Without their patient instructions and generous helps, this paper could not have finished. I would like to take this cherish opportunity to express my earnest thanks and appreciation to the people who helped me during the process of my work. My sincere thanks and appreciation first goes to my independent study supervisors: Dr. Supot Chittasuthiyan and Professor Dr. Antonello Alici for their patient instruction, valuable guidance, helpful comments and wise suggestions, coupled with their consistent encouragements throughout the whole process of this study. My gratitude and thanks then go to all professors and lectures who taught me and inspired me and encouraged me which provided me the strong based knowledge for this study, and classmates and staff members of the Faculty of Architecture, Graduate School of International Program, Silpakorn University for their curriculum guidance, camaraderie, sharing and encouragement which helped me to finish this work.
I also would like to express my appreciation to the staff of Yunnan Provincial Museum who provided me worthy documents, and the chance to be a volunteer to do my study and to collect information.
Last, my deepest appreciation goes to my beloved family members: my parents, and my grandmother for their consistent support and encouragement for my study, and unconditioned love throughout my life, and my cousins for their companies. I believe that this achievement today will make them proud of me.
LIU SHENGYU
Liu SHENG YU
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
ABSTRACT ...... D
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...... E
TABLE OF CONTENTS ...... F
LIST OF FIGURE...... G
CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION OF YUNNAN PROVINCIAL MUSEUM...... 1
CHAPTER II MANAGEMENT OF YUNNAN PROVINCIAL MUSEUM ...... 23
CHAPTER III THE SWOT OF YUNNAN PROVINCIAL MUSEUM ...... 95
CHAPTER IV CONCLUSION ...... 1
REFERENCES ...... 5 VITA ...... 9
LIST OF FIGURE
Page
Figure 1 Site Plan ...... 5
Figure 2 Section Plan ...... 6
Figure 3 Section Plan ...... 6
Figure 4 Section Plan ...... 7
Figure 5 Level 1 Plan ...... 8
Figure 6 Level 2 Plan ...... 9
Figure 7 Level 3 Plan ...... 10
Figure 8 Academic Hall ...... 11
Figure 9 Library ...... 11
Figure 10 Yi Keyin architecture ...... 12
Figure 11 Yi Keyin architecture ...... 12
Figure 12 Interior views of Yunnan Provincial Museum ...... 13
Figure 13 Level 1 Interior views ...... 13
Figure 14 Stone Forest Scenic ...... 14
Figure 15 Stone Forest Scenic ...... 14
Figure 16 Aerial view of Yunnan Provincial Museum ...... 14
Figure 17 Exterior views of Yunnan Provincial Museum ...... 15
Figure 18 Exterior views of Yunnan Provincial Museum ...... 15
Figure 19 The old Yunnan Provincial Museum ...... 16
Figure 20 Location of China ...... 21
Figure 21 Location of Yunnan Province ...... 21
Figure 22 Location of Kunming City...... 22
Figure 23 Preface hall ...... 26
Figure 24 One side view ...... 27
Figure 25 Another side view ...... 27
Figure 26 The first exhibition ...... 29 H
Figure 27 The first exhibition ...... 29
Figure 28 Early marine organisms in Yunnan area ...... 29
Figure 29 The evolution of human ...... 30
Figure 30 The beginning of Bronze period ...... 34
Figure 31 The site discovering bronze in Yunnan ...... 34
Figure 32 The scenery of bronze making ...... 35
Figure 33 Exhibition hall ...... 35
Figure 34 Bronze items ...... 35
Figure 35 “Niu Hu Tong An” the highlight collection of the museum ...... 36
Figure 36 Instruction of the QR audio guide ...... 37
Figure 37 The beginning of the Influential Clan in Yunnan ...... 39
Figure 38 The wall of surname of aristocratic families ...... 40
Figure 39 The beginning of Buddhist Kingdom ...... 42
Figure 40 The beginning of Buddhist Kingdom ...... 42
Figure 41 Scroll of Buddha legend ...... 43
Figure 42 Buddha images ...... 43
Figure 43 Buddha scroll painting ...... 43
Figure 44 Statues of Buddha images in the cave ...... 44
Figure 45 The ship model of Zheng He’s Voyage ...... 46
Figure 46 Masks of different minority cultures ...... 47
Figure 47 Hieroglyphs ...... 47
Figure 48 The beginning of Contemporary Era ...... 48
Figure 49 Architecture in Kunming city at that time ...... 49
Figure 50 Yunnan-Vietnam Railway ...... 49
Figure 51 Revolution in Yunnan area ...... 50
Figure 52 The porcelain wall ...... 53
Figure 53 Exhibition hall of porcelains ...... 53
Figure 54 Exhibition hall of porcelains ...... 54
Figure 55 Exhibition of I Came From Ancient Times ...... 55
I
Figure 56 Exhibition of East Wind Blowing Westwards ...... 55
Figure 57 Exhibition of The contemporary Tangka Art Exhibition ...... 56
Figure 58 Exhibition of Tea Horse Road ...... 56
Figure 59 Gu Qin ...... 56
Figure 60 Volunteers performance ...... 57
Figure 61 Exhibition of Gu Qin ...... 57
Figure 62 The statue of Boya, a Chinese historical person ...... 57
Figure 63 Exhibition of Phantom of Africa ...... 58
Figure 64 Teenagers learning group ...... 59
Figure 65 Statues of the exhibition of the Eternal City ...... 60
Figure 66 Exhibition of the Eternal City ...... 60
Figure 67 Opening ceremony of exhibition Sissy and Hungary ...... 61
Figure 68 The beginning of exhibition Sissy and Hungary ...... 61
Figure 69 The post of exhibition Sissy and Hungary ...... 62
Figure 70 Exhibition of Sissy and Hungary ...... 62
Figure 71 QR code of Yunnan Provincial Museum Wechat account ...... 65
Figure 72 The home page of Yunnan Provincial Museum Weibo account ...... 65
Figure 73 Homepage of online exhibition ...... 68
Figure 74 Online exhibition ...... 68
Figure 75Information desk and visitors’ service ...... 73
Figure 76 Information desk and visitors’ service ...... 74
Figure 77 Digital display system ...... 74
Figure 78 Volunteers’ activities ...... 75
Figure 79 Volunteers’ activities and interpretation ...... 76
Figure 80 Children group volunteers class ...... 76
Figure 81 Professional interpreter ...... 77
Figure 82 Resting area ...... 79
Figure 83 Resting area ...... 80
Figure 84 ChuCola coffee shop ...... 81
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Figure 85 ChuCola coffee shop ...... 82
Figure 86 Children Experience Zone ...... 83
Figure 87 Cultural creativity store ...... 85
Figure 88 Cultural creativity store ...... 85
Figure 89 Products of cultural creativity store ...... 85
Figure 90 Products of cultural creativity store ...... 85
Figure 91 Automatic postcard machine ...... 86
Figure 92 Red classic history ...... 93
Figure 93 Red classic history ...... 94
Figure 94 Art class ...... 94
Figure 95 Festival activity ...... 95
Figure 96 Popular Science class for the students from village ...... 96
Figure 97 Science class for the students from village ...... 96
Figure 98 Insects story summer camp ...... 97
Figure 99 Insects story summer camp ...... 97
Figure 100 The original Niu Hu Tong An case ...... 101
Figure 101 The first prize work ...... 101
Figure 102 The lacquer of Yi group ...... 102
Figure 103 The second prize work “Miao Hu Hu” ...... 102
Figure 104 The Horn Shaped Chimes” ...... 102
Figure 105 The second prize work “timer and photo clips” ...... 103
Figure 106 The third prize work “flash disk” ...... 103
Figure 107 The Lu sheng instrument ...... 103
Figure 108 The third prize work “atmosphere light” ...... 104 Figure 109 The third prize work “corkscrew” ...... 104 1
CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION OF YUNNAN PROVINCIAL MUSEUM
The first chapter is going to give the definition of museum both in English and Chinese, then to give a brief introduction of Yunnan Provincial Museum and Yunnan culture, which is preparing for the next chapter. 1. Definition of museum The museum has been constructed as a symbol in Western society since the Renaissance. This symbol is both complex and multi-layered, acting as a sign for domination and liberation, learning and leisure. As sites for exposition, through their collections, displays and buildings, museums mediate many of society’s basic values. But these mediations are subject to contestation, and the museum can also be seen as a site for cultural politics. In post-colonial societies, museums have changed radically, reinventing themselves under pressure from many forces, which include new roles and functions for museums, economic rationalism and moves towards greater democratic access.1 Museum is not simple to be described and understood. The term ‘museum’ may mean either the institution or the establishment or the place generally designed to select, study and display the material and intangible evidence of man and his environment. The form and the functions of museums have varied considerably over the centuries. Their contents have diversified, as have their mission, their way of operating and their management.2 Over the past more than five centuries witnessed the evolvement and development of museums, from a private show-off room to a public learning center, from royal and upper-class down to ordinary community, from very single functional institution to multi-dimension place, from sparsely scattered spot to plentiful densely area. The origin of the museum is often traced back to Ptolemanic Mouseion at Alexandria, which was (whatever else it may have been) first and foremost a study collection with library
1 Eilean Hooper-Greenhill and Flora Kaplan, eds. Learning in the museum: Museum Meanings, 1st, Routledge, in 1998. 2 André Desvallées and François Mairesse, eds. Key Concepts of Museology, Armand Colin, 2010, pp.56-57. 2
attached, a repository of knowledge, a place of scholars and philosophers and historians.3 The English word Museum as well other Western languages of museum originate from the Greek word Mouseion which originally is a temple for people to worship the nine goddesses Muses who charge history, science and art in Greek mythology. Mouseion then was given more meaning and functions seeing in variously abundant collections and an institution of study. In 1683, Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology, the first modern museum opening for public worldwide was established, using the name Museum which then becomes an official common acknowledgment throughout the world and has been using for centuries.4 As Nikolaus Pevsner mentioned in his book “Art collecting starts with the Italian Renaissance; for the Renaissance developed a sense of history, enthusiams for the products of Classical Antiquity and whole genres of contemporary art suited to the private house…” 5 And Andrew McClellan in his book says “Generally art museums share a commitment to preserving the objects in their care for posterity and to making those objects available to the public…”6 In contemporary culture, the notion of the museum holds contradictory meanings. Theorists, who come from many disciplines including sociology, psychology, anthropology, linguistics, literary criticism, and gender studies, typically see the museum in multi guises but disagree on what these guises are. Most commonly heard are the metaphors of museum as shrine, market-driven industry, colonizing space, and post-museum. These categories are not mutually exclusive and clearly overlap. Moreover, no one museum represents exactly one of these paradigms. For example, a museum may profess to be a shrine but financial issues are still central—they are just hidden from public view; and institution may aim to be a center for critical inquiry but there will always be groups who see it as a colonized space where they don’t have a choice.7 The identity and image of the museum is changing, for it now doubles as a
3 Edward Porter Alexander, Museums in Motion, 1st ed. American Association for State and Local History, 1979, pp.6-7. 4 E Jun and Jiang Tao: 博物馆学概论(Bo Wuguan Xue Gai Lun), Lan Zhou University Publisher, 2014, p.23. (trans. by the author). 5 Nikolaus Pevsner, A History of Building Types, Bollingen, Thames and Hudson, 1976. 6 Andrew McClellan, The Art Museum from Boullée to Bilbao, University of California Press, 2008, p.13. 7 Janet, New Museum Theory and Practice, p.9. 3
community center, a school, a shopping center, and often a movie house.8 In Chinese, the word museum is translated into 博物馆(Bo Wu Guan). 博物(Bo Wu) is originally a verb meaning of knowledge acquirement from everything, and 馆(Guan) is a noun, public building for kind of activities and functions. It is a long tradition to collect, to conserve and to study the former cultural heritage in China starting from Shang Dynasty(1600B.C.). The history of museum in China could date back to Confucius Temple(5B.C.), which was established to commemorate the master’s outstanding achievements and to spread his ideology to public. The temple consisted of three bedrooms of Confucius house, displayed the clothes and hats, qin* and ride of the master, where commemorative activities were held annually for people to show their respect to the master.9 Although the concept of 博物馆 and the word 博物 in China appears very early, the common acknowledgment of the translation of museum as 博物馆 is a recent thing. In 19th century, the number of Chinese scholars to Europe got increased who started to know the word museum but with various Chinese translation versions except 博物馆, and one of the closest translation to 博物馆 is 博物院(Yuan); at the same time, Japan was actively learning from Western, and in 1860, the word 博物馆 was first time used by a Japanese ambassador. There is an argument of the origin of 博物馆, whether it is directly translated into Chinese from English word or quoted from Japanese, but the Chinese word 博物馆 is appropriately expressed the meaning of museum. Recently, the focus of museums turns from museum itself to public perspective that takes people as the influential and decisive factors. Since the advent of the new museology in the 1990s, many in the museum sector have come to see themselves as part of the leisure industry, modifying their practices and policies in order to become more audience focused. 10 “Museums are not neutral spaces that speak with one institutional, authoritative voice. Museums are about individuals making subjective choices”.11 The professional definition of museum most widely recognized today is still
8 Andrew, The Art Museum from Boullée to Bilbao, p.13. 9 Wang Hongjun, The Basis of Chinese Museology, Shanghai Classics Publishing House, 2006, p.32.(transl. by the author) 10 D.D.M. Mason and C. McCarthy, eds. ‘The feeling of exclusion’: Young peoples’ perceptions of art galleries, Museum Management and Curatorship, Volume 21, Issue 1, March 2006, Pages 20-31. 11 Janet, New Museum Theory and Practice, p.2. 4
that given in 2007 in the Statutes of the International Council of Museums (ICOM): “A museum is a non-profit, permanent institution in the service of society and its development, open to the public, which acquires, conserves, researches, communicates and exhibits the tangible and intangible heritage of humanity and its environment for the purposes of education, study and enjoyment”.12 Post-War was a turning point to cultural heritage, which witnessed the aroused consciousness of conservation and protection. Especially over the past decades, the interest in identity has emerged worldwide where people try to find their belongings through various history and heritage and where museum to some content is redefined. Museums are extraordinary places where visitors have an incredible range of experiences. It is not unusual for visitors to describe epiphanies in recounting their own history with museums.13 Museum therefore, is a “magic box” in which in width once opened, it will connect different time and space, showing visitors a panoramic view from science to art, Western to Eastern, high latitude down to the equator, and pre-history relics to far future conception from which people can acquire some information and knowledge of a place; and in which in depth when people walk in, their senses will be touched with previous experience and knowledge recalled, from somatic to aesthetic visitors will be in a special situation from which they can create their own interpretation and new experience of history and culture, and have dialogue and interaction with museum. Museum is supposed to be a way of life where people spend their leisure time with families and friends, or themselves visiting, socializing and creating their special and meaningful experience, additional a way of education where a public and open classroom is accessible, teaching and learning are not bored and theoretical vividly and practically.
2. Architecture of New Yunnan Provincial Museum Architecture, in “new museum” terms is important. Remember, we are talking about a destination, an attraction, not just a museum. We are not talking about a “temple” but a
12 ICOM Statutes, Article 3-Definition of Terms, Section 1, Vienna (Austria), 2007. Available on the internet: http://archives.icom.museum/statutes.html#2. 13 George E. Hein, ed, Learning in the museum, p.2. 5
brash, expressive beacon for a new way of thinking.14 The architecture of museum in new time is a visionary intention not merely a design, but bearing the profound thinking of the decision makers. Lied in the cultural circle of Kunming city, neighbored to Yunnan Grand Theatre, Yunnan Literature and Fine Art Museum and The Ancient Town of Guandu, surrounded by Baoxiang river (Figure 1), the architecture of New Yunnan Provincial Museum is well-designed by Rocco Design Architects Ltd. led by RoccoYim, Sen Kee, which is the winner of competitive bidding.
Figure 1 Site Plan
Source ARCHDAILY With 50,000m2 area, this building is organised into seven floors, two underground floors and five up ground floors including 360 underground parking lots (Figure 2,3,4).
14 Janet, New Museum Theory and Practice, p.136. 6
Figure 2 Section Plan
Source ARCHDAILY
Figure 3 Section Plan
Source ARCHDAILY 7
Figure 4 Section Plan
Source ARCHDAILY
There are three functional areas (Figure 5,6,7): 8
Figure 5 Level 1 Plan
Source ARCHDAILY 9
Figure 6 Level 2 Plan
Source ARCHDAILY 10
Figure 7 Level 3 Plan
Source ARCHDAILY - service area covering Academic Hall (Figure 8), decorated with natural bamboo plank, and servicing four languages simultaneous interpreting, and seating 200 people, multimedia room, coffee shop, culture creativity souvenir store, two-layers library (Figure 9,10), lounge and Bo Yatang** ;
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Figure 8 Academic Hall
Source ARCHDAILY
Figure 9 Library
Source LIU SHENGYU - exhibition area occupying 16500 square meters and three floors with six permanent displays and four temporary arrangements; - cultural relics repository area divided into classification and register area, security area, and temporary storage area all with professional fire protection and anti-thief systems to guarantee the safety, and scientific constant temperature and humidity device. Intellectual control system together with other high technology works in every part of museum, furthermore, solar power is applied into the electricity generation. Locally natural and cultural elements of Yunnan combined with modern technology are the major conception of the design. From aerial perspective, it looks like a square but with a message of Chinese character “回（hui）” (Figure 10,11), the meaning of back. This conception gets inspiration from one of the indigenous minority groups -- Yi group whose vernacular architecture is the prototype of the design named “Yi Keyin”, the meaning of a seal. The square shape of exterior of “Yi Keyin” in the old time looks like a Chinese seal, and that is where the name comes from. This kind of indigenous architecture was not hard to see in Yunnan especially in the middle area of Yunnan, the region of Kunming (provincial capital), but the advent of urbanization brings about the quickly disappeared of these traditional houses. The structural design of “Yi Keyin” takes locally geographical situation fully into consideration, making the house multifunctional. A big courtyard of “Yi Keyin” is designed for adequate day lighting and other daily activities, where the design of museum follows to built a spacious 12
courtyard to make sunlight as fully as possible access to interior; other space of “Yi Keyin” are arranged for hosts’ bedrooms (Zhengfang), guests’ bedrooms (Erfang), kitchen, storage and barn, where those space in museum are used for exhibitions and other functional area (Figure 12,13).
Figure 10 Yi Keyin architecture
Source BAIDU
Figure 11 Yi Keyin architecture
Source BAIDU 13
Figure 12 Interior views of Yunnan Provincial Museum
Source ARCHDAILY
Figure 13 Level 1 Interior views
Source ARCHDAILY When the view turns to front, it is easily to see the irregularly overlapped layers facade inspired from Stone Forest Scenic (Figure 14,15), a 5A*** China National Tourist Attractions in Yunnan. This attraction is a hit scenic renowned for its various karst landform types, and it is a typical feature when people talk about Yunnan. By designing this form, the natural element comes to the museum, with more than one hundred local flora surrounded to give visitors a sense of closeness to the nature. The deep brown perforated aluminum panel of facade is also a representative of Yunnan feature which sees in the abundance of non-ferrous metal of Yunnan, and thousands of holes of the panels themselves with the changing of sunlight presents people eveleven different patterns (Figure 16,17,18). 14
Figure 14 Stone Forest Scenic
Source BAIDU
Figure 15 Stone Forest Scenic
Source BAIDU
Figure 16 Aerial view of Yunnan Provincial Museum
Source BAIDU 15
Figure 17 Exterior views of Yunnan Provincial Museum
Source ARCHDAILY
Figure 18 Exterior views of Yunnan Provincial Museum
Source ARCHDAILY Going up the slope from outside , the entrance is at the end of steps, and walking into the building, a glass boxlike space suspended in the atrium atrracts visitors eyes for the first sight, and on the first floor, two ponds are built with simple and unadorned materials creating visitors a sense of fresh and living public area and a breathing space. Addintionally, both sides of the first floor stand local plants, and four courtyards at four corners at spaciou atrium lead the sunlight accessible to the building from which rather than the artificial lighting, the more natural elements and enviorment there are, the more relax and comfortable people will feel. In the atrium, stone-made stairs accompined by an elevator provides the access for vistors to the second floor. This is the overview of the architecture of New Yunnan provinicial museum, a local- based but well-designed in every details landmark of Kunming city and Yunnan province.
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3. Introduction of Yunnan Provincial Museum Yunnan provincial museum, a comprehensive museum with sixty-six years history witnessing difficulties, development and achievements, was officially established in 1951(Figure 19). Since the 1950s, Yunnan Provincial Museum has conducted hundreds of archaeological investigations, trial diggings and excavations for the purpose of scientific research in Yunnan Province.15
Figure 19 The old Yunnan Provincial Museum
Source BAIDU It was the only state-owned unit of Yunnan in charge of cultural relics’ archeology, reseach and collection until the 1990s. After the 1990s, the archaeologyical team of Yunnan Provincial Museum separated from the museum to form the Institute of Archaeology of Yunnan Province. 16 With 90% of collections of Yunnan Province Museum at the National Grade Three and above, it has been the most important unit of cultural relics in Yunnan Province which is superior of cultural relics store and archaeology institute, etc., and is mainly in charge of local curation, collection, excavation, archaeology, and identification of cultural relics.17 The Cultural Revolution**** sees the fruitful of this museum in collection and archaeology when the policy and focus to boost archaeology field around the whole China was the major drive, and there were no other repositories except Yunnan
15 Ma Wendou, 《春秋—云南省博物馆 60 年》(Chun Qi –The sixty years of Yunnan Provincial Museum), Yunnan Publish Co. Ltd and Yunnan Fine Arts Publishing House, 2011, p.7. 16 Ma Wendou, 《春秋》(Chun Qiu), p.8. 17 Yunnan Provincial Museum official website, (transl. by the author), http://www.ynmuseum.org/survey.html#section=1. 17
provincial museum to collect and conserve antiques in Yunnan. Numerous brozens, ancient coins, rubbings from stones inscriptions from archaeology and excavation of Yunnan relics were the greatest achivements which not only were valuable items but as evidences and documents fueled the study of Yunnan history and development as well. There are the most influential excavations as following. The first one was done in the year between 1955 to 1960 in Shizhaishan Tombs of Jinning County, Yunnan Province, with four major excavations conducted, and 50 tombs of Western Han Dynasty(from 202B.C. to 8A.D.) unearthed, and no less than 4000 objects excavated, in particular a gold seal of the Dian King confiming the historical records about Dian Kingdom. This is a representative site of bronze ware culture of the Dianchi Lake region and known as “Culture of Shizhaishan” or “Culture of Dian” in the archaeology circle of the world. In 1972, another siginificant site of Shizhaishan culture was conducted in Lijiashan, Jiangchuan County, Yunnan Province. With 27 ancient tombs excavated and more than 1300 objects pieces of cultural relics from Warring States Period(from 453B.C. to 221B.C.) through the Han Dynasty unearthed, this excavation is the enrichement of the culture of Dian Kingdom, and the objects are the valuable resources for the research on the histroy of Yunnan weaving.18 From 1975 to 1976 sees the other epochal achievement in the excavation at Wanjiaba, Chuxiong city, Yunnan Province. There were 1245 objects unearthed from this site, where five of them with great significance were bronze drums of the Spring and Autumn Period(from 770B.C. to 453.B.C) which up till now have been the earliest bronze drums throughout the world.19 When time goes to next years from 1977 to 1982 in Batatai ancient tombs, Zhujie, Qujing city, Yunnan Province, with seven excavations continously carried out, the ancient tombs from the Eastern Zhou Dynasty to the Ming Dynasty(from 1368A.D. to 1644A.D.) were unveiled from a seven-metere height earth mount covering around 200 pieces of bronze ware, porcelain and jade, among which the tombs fulled with shapes of cremation pots and few funeral objects, from the Nanzhao Period(from 738A.D. to 902A.D.) to the Ming Dynasty were all cremation ones, providing a scientific basis for
18 Ma Wendou, 《春秋》(Chun Qiu), p.8. 19 Ivi, p.9. 18
the dividing line of cremation tombs in Yunnan. This ancient site has undergone several dynasties for nearly 2000 years, which is rarely in the history of Chinese archaeology field.20 Recently, the number of collections and items arrives at 222,871 pieces(sets), covering chinaware, ancient calligraphy and paintings and coins, stamps, brozens and rubbings from stones inscriptions and sourcing from donations, social acquisition, archaeology excavation and collection. 705 pieces(set) of those relics are at the first grade cultural relic, 1389 pieces(set) are at the second grade cultural relic and 12203 pieces(set) are at the third grade cultural relic.21 A proposal to build a new provincial museum was proposed in 1999 as a result of a study report that the old museum did not reach the national standards of museum architecture which was inadequate in infrastructure to exhibit and to preserve collections, and in fire safety requirements as well safety precautions to deal with emergency. A full functional and well-equipped new modern museum in a new place was inevitable. Seven years later, after a series of preliminary work, new address was chosen, and in June, 2009, the first piling was done to start the new museum project. It took nearly six years to complete the whole project, and during the process, not a few provincial and natioanl awards in architecture design and high/new-tech usage go to the new museum. In the middle of 2015, the new museum opens to public for free admission with around one million tourists’ number every year consisted of groups(tourists group, children and teenage learning groups, and other groups) and individuals. The first exhibition of Yunna Provincial Museum was on Army Day in 1952. Since then, more than 400 exhibitions reflecting social changes, ups and downs of the museum have been held with abundant resources of home and abroad. After the innovation and the industriously painstaking of staff for one and half year, the museum was reopen in 2006 showed the public three permanent exhibitions, “Dian Kingdom— Bronze Culture of Yunnan”, “Nanzhao State and Dali Kingdom—Land with the Light of Buddha”, and “House Filled with Treasures—Excellent Collections of Yunnan
20 Ivi, p.10. 21 Yunnan Provincial Museum official website, (transl. by the author), Available on the internet: http://www.ynmuseum.org/survey.html#section=1. 19
Provincial Museum”. The exhibition of “Dian Kingdom—Bronze Culture of Yunnan” was nominated as one of the national Top 10 best museum exhibitions, the highest national award in the museum field. Yunnan Provincial Museum not only gets achivement at home, but also its collections are introduced into other countries several times. The exhibition of “Bronze Ware Collected at Yunnan Provincial Museum” started its tour worldwide in 1984 until 1991, successively arriving in Tokyo(Japan), Zurich(Switzerland), Vienna(Austria), Cologne, Berlin and Stuttgart(three cities in Germany), Rome(Italy), which lured numerous visitors and achieved great success. And the exhibition of “Buddhist Art of Yunnan from Nanzhao Period to the Qing Dynasty” followed closely to be held in Zurich(Switzerland) and Nagoya(Japan) during the year 1991 to 1992.22 From 2009, Yunnan Provincial Museum has been brought in two or three special exhibitions each year which improve the esthetic quality of temporary exhibitions. The most hit and highly praiseful exhibitions were valuable painting and calligraphy masterpieces made by renowed Chinese artists Xu Beihong, Zhang Daqian, and Pan Tianshou, etc., together with calligraphy exhibition of a Chinese Buddhist master, Xingyun and theme exhibitions about history and collections, and the intnternational touring exhibitions of The Deep launched by BLOOM, a French non-profit organization in 2009. Furthermore, in 2013, a cooperation proposal with British Museum to bring in the exhhibition of Greek and Roman sculptures had reached as the first special exhibition for opening ceremony of the new museum. Recently Sissy and Hungary from Hungary, curated by Hungarian National museum also are widely welcomed amony local people.23 Not only the achievements goes to exhibitions but also to acdamic field with at least 60 books and 73 issues published over the past couple of decades. In 2011, a self-created journal of museology was issued in Yunnan Provincial Museum. When it comes to information and publicity place, the museum runs its own official website and manages several social applications accounts for instance Weibo and Wechat*****, which makes the multi-media method accessible for public to keep up with museum work and
22 Ma Wendou, 《春秋》(Chun Qiu), p.11. 23 Ivi, p.12. 20
events. In addition, over the past 60 years, the museum values social eductaion work setting the Social Education Department of Yunnan Provincial Museum to provide visitors professional quality service, and has been actively involved in volunteer activities. So far, the museum has more than 300 registered volunteers including students, civil servants, soldiers and the retired, and coming from both local and other provinces, even from abroad, among which Francisco Xavier Arechiga-Ormsbee from America has been working as a volunteer for four years and students of the Institute fr Tourism Studies from Macao get practical traninging at the museum every year.24 Over more than half centry witnesses the changes of Yunnan provincial museum from the original Yunnan liberary museum to Yunnan provincial museum, a temporary address in Yuantong temple to the previous place as one of ten landmarks in Kunming city and to nowadays one of twelve cultural landmarks in Yunnan province, but the achivements and fruit of the museum with great popularity, recognition of museum field, awards from provincial and national.
4. Culture of Yunnan Yunnan is a multi-ethnic province consisted of 26 ethnic groups nesting in the southwest of China and neighboring with Myanmar, Vietnam and Laos in which the plateau landform raises for generations, and in which these industrious and talented people creates brilliant civilization and left abundant historical and cultural heritage (Figure 20,21,22). The study of archaeology excavation shows that in the long history of Yunnan province, Yunnan was the home of Homo erectus yuan mouensis whoes teeth fossil were discovered in 1965 in Yuanmou county, the earliest human beings discovered in China and Asia up to now which was gauged the time 1.7 million years up to now, and also the habitat of the oldest dinosaur specie Lufengosaurus when the period dates back to 180 million ago and other 30 species on earth. The discovery in Lufeng county Yunnan Province in 1938 found numerous and complete dinosaur fossil, which is one of the most concentrated and the largest in number of dinosaur fossil area throughout the world.
24 Ivi, p.13. 21
Figure 20 Location of China
Scource GOOGLE MAP
Figure 21 Location of Yunnan Province
Source GOOGLE MAP 22
Figure 22 Location of Kunming City
Source GOOGLE MAP In this land went through two local dominated cultural era: Dian Brozen Culture and Nanzhao–Dali Kingdom culture. Dian group is one of local minorities, who is the creator of the Bronze Culture by setting up Dian Kingdom from 278 B.C to 109 B.C, centering on Dianchi Lake area(center of Yunnan Province) and reaching to its close counties and eastern area. Dian people inhabited this place from Warring Period until the late of Western Han Dynasty. This region was once under the jurisdiction of Qin Dynasty. When the regime went to Han Dynasty with Qin Dynasty perished and Han Dynasty estabilshed, Dian group was conquered and subjected to Han Dynasty. The King of Han Dynasty, in order to strengthen the government of this area, assigned officers to Dian(Yunnan Province) to govern this region, and also sent massive Han group people to Dian to settle down, which gradually resulted in Dian culture was intergrated and finally assimilated into Han culture. Although the Dian Kingdom disappeared as the strengthened Han power, and the system of centralization of authority, and aggression of other minorities power, it left a short but marvelous Bronze culture to descendant and home and abroad.25
25 Mao Yao, 《云南简史》Yunnan Jian Shi, Yunnan Press, 2009. (transl. by the author). 23
Another influential culture Nanzhao Kingdom was established in 738 A.D. the period during the end of Sui Dynasty and the beginning of Tang Dynasty by a tribe leader Mengzhao who conquered other five competitive local kingdoms and united them named Nanzhao by the location of Mengzhao tribe at the south of Erhai. Mengzhao tribe were Ailao clan, the ancestor of Dai/Tai group, a minority of Yunnan Province. There were couple of decades that Nanzhao attached itself to Tubo(Tibet)’s power to resist Tang Dynasty. In 779 A.D., after the defeat that Nanzhao and Tubo with Tang Dynasty, the relationship between Nanzhao and Tubo turned from political brotherhood to Nanzhao’s subjection to Tubo, but in 794 A.D., Nanzhao subjected itself to Tang Dynasty completely. The year 897 was the end of Nanzhao Kingdom, when a major prime minister of Nanzhao Kingdom Zheng Maisi ordered a person to kill the King of Nanzhao and his relatives more than 800 people, and established Da Changhe Kingdom, Nanzhao Kingdom was completely perished. A splendid Buddhist culture was born at such a complex situation of 164 years long Nanzhao kingdom. With the spread of Tantra to Nanzhao area, it become the dominated religion. Temples and Buddha statues were established from top to bottom at which people made the distinctive Buddhist statues in the world not solemn as others but amiable with a simle whose look looks like local young man. The Buddhist culture and local habitude brought the popluarity of cremation, which was one of the achievements of archaeology excavation of Yunnan Provincial Museum.26 Both Dian Kingdom and Nanzhao Kingdom play significant roles in the historical and cultural heritage field of Yunnan Province, left brilliant and abundant treasure to archeaology circle and later generations. Moreover, in culture, without any doubt, multi-ethnic background generates the richness of culture with different languages and characters. The language of Han group in Yunnan Province is the Southwestern Mandarin which is one of the dialects evovled from official language of China, while others are Sino-Tibetan languages and Austroasiatic languages. The language usage are dominated by mother tongue, bilingual, multilingual and language shift. All ethnic groups have their own languages and characters except Hui, Man and Shui groups, and there are some connections
26 Ibid. 24
between Dai group and Thai culture in origin in characters and language, and Naxi group creates Dongba culture of which the history has no less than 1000 years up to now, and of which the hieroglyphic characters are inherited so far and still used at present in indigenous people’s daily life. In geography, the varied topography of Yunnan endows this land with abundant natural resources, seeing in mineral resources, with so far 143 kinds discovered, in particular the renowed non-ferrous metal, and also the diversity of natural situation is a comfortable inhabitant for flora and fauna, where Yunnan has the most species of animals and plants in China, therefore it has the name of “Kingdom of flora and fauna. The fertile land bred various species, and raised diverse groups of people, then the inhabitants rewarded rich and prosperous cultures and civlization to this land and its further residents, and to the long history of China. 23
CHAPTER II MANAGEMENT OF YUNNAN PROVINCIAL MUSEUM
This chapter is going to present the exsiting management of Yunnan Provincial Museum in different aspects, centering on the exhibitions management and arrangement, visitors services, and educational work, which provides the materials and clues for the third chapter. 1. The role of management Management in museums, according to a recent journal article, is ‘the flavour of the month’, the most highprofile aspect of museum activity at present. Every facet of the management of museums is being examined and re-evaluated as never before. This will not, however, be a short-lived fashion, a passing fad of interest before another area of museum work is placed under the microscope. As a result of a combination of factors, management is likely to remain one of the key issues for museums into the next millennium.27 Museum management is defined today as the action of ensuring the running of the museum’s administrative business and, more generally, all the activities which are not directly attached to the specific fields of museum work (preservation, research and communication). In this regard, museum management essentially encompasses tasks relating to financial (accounting, management control, finances) and legal responsibilities, to security and upkeep, to staff management and to marketing as well as to strategic procedures and the general planning of museum activities.28 The role, development and management of museums has changed greatly in the last couple of decades. Museum institutions have become steadily more visitor-focused and some of the larger museums are veering more towards a corporate management model in their daily operations. While the challenges of day-to-day work often overwhelm the ability of the museum field to stop and think about its fundamental philosophical bases,
27 Kevin Moore, Museum Management, Taylor and Francis e-library, 2005, p.12. 28 André and François, Key Concepts of Museology, pp.56-57. 24
there is a growing need for functionaries at all levels to rise to the challenge of bringing clarity and comprehension to those who question the relevance of the museum to society and its citizens.29 Therefore, the management of museum is definitely not easy work and inevitably evolved. From selecting a tiny collection to arranging exhibitions, from staff arrangment to visitors management, from educational scope to recreational dimension, from the conservation of relics to the innovation of cultural creativity products, the management is not only a sole department or a manager, but a multiple and organized system, and is not only the curatorial focus but the visitors’, and is not only fixed theoritical principles but dynamic practical experience, and is not only about being a knowledgeable professional scholar, but rather about having comprehensive perspective, sociable competence and competent professional skill. In a word, the management of museum requires to deal with and balance the relations between the demands of different visitors and the supply of the museum well, even to play the role of a guider spreading knowledge and positive social values and attitudes to the public, and to not stand at the micro but the macro level to consider, to decide and to manage, what is more, to preserve the valuable historical and cultural relics and collections but to catch the trend and to discover their creative value.
2. The management of permanent exhibitions As a comprehensive national museum, Yunnan Provincial Museum undertakes the responsibility to spread the culture and history of Yunnan to public, and to educate people. In this term, the theme of exhibitions of Yunnan Provincial Museum is based on the history of Yunnan and centers on the timeline of history, from the very early period Ancient Prehistoric Yunnan, Bronze Age(The Dawn of Civilization), to Influential Clans in Yunnan(Yunnan in the Wei Jin, the Northern and Southern Dynasties), The Art of Buddhist Kingdom(Nanzhao and Dali Kingdom), Exploitation and Defense(Yunnan in the Yuan, Ming, Qing Dynasties), to Contemporary Era(Yunnan In a New Age), coupled with a themed exhibition Flaming Kiln Fire—Ceramics Collections of Yunnan Provincial Museum. These seven exhibitions structures the core
29 Ibid. 25
of the whole exhibitions in Yunnan Provincial Museum, which are arranged on the second and the third floors. Except those permanent exhibitions, there are several temporary displays at the same time exhibited on the first floor. Currently, displays for instance: Buddhist Art Exhibition of Yunnan, and Sissy and Hungary—The Magnificent Life of Hungarian Aristocracy in the 17-19th Century, and The Letters of Dian Veteran on the War of Resistance Against Japan are available, and a painting and calligraphy exhibition for visitors to visit, which normally these exhibitions period is three months. In addition, Yunnan Provincial Museum also provides online exhibitions for public which is an alternative choice for museum goer.
2.1. Preface Hall The six permanent exhibitions based on the timeline starts from the preface hall on the second floor, a concisely overall introduction of the land of Yunnan showed on the preface hall which occupies around 100 square meters. The core design of the preface hall can be summarized into several words: one front, two sides, then looking up and looking back. “One front”(Figure 23,24,25) means that at the entrance of the hall, a white wall stands in front of visitors through which the preface described with 361 words both in Chinese and English are inlaid with metal on the wall, presenting the general information of Yunnan Province at first to visitors.30
30 Yunnan Provincial Museum, 《2015 年鉴》(THE ANNUAL OF YUNNAN MUSEUM), Yunnan Publish and Yunnan Press, 2015, p.7. (transl. by the author). 26
Figure 23 Preface hall
Source YUNNAN PROVINCIAL MUSEUM For the “two sides” says the two sides of the front wall. On the right side of the front wall is a huge embossment wall made by metal aluminum, using the technic of metal founding which presents a vivid image of Yunnan Province from 530 million years ago to 1949. The height of this wall reaches to the third floor, so it is a better angle to see this embossment when you finish the tour on the third floor. The whole embossment is totally divided into 17 period to describe the historic and the magnificent events in the history of Yunnan, and every time point carved with a typical scene or symbolic objects according to the characteristics of that era, from topographic features, environment, biological species and culture relics these dimensions is presented to visitors, according to the evolution of biology from the monocytes organisms, to the reptilian species, to the homo erectus, then to the civilized human beings, and from primitive communes, to the Paleolithic period, to the bronze period, to the agricultural society, then to the modern time.31 This wall includes in a macro scope all the important information of Yunnan and in a direct way provides to visitors. And against to the right side of the front wall, there is an image of red land, blue sky and clouds, which implies the typical geological feature of Yunnan which is the red land and nests in the Yunnan-Guizhou
31 Ibid. 27
Plateau. It is the root of the life in Yunnan to cultivate the diversity of Yunnan people, and it is in this red land that human create distinctive cultures.
Figure 24 One side view
Source LIU SHENGYU
Figure 25 Another side view
Source LIU SHENGYU Then “looking up” refers to the right above, where once visitors look up the above wall, a series of white decorations applying “layer” as the basic element into the whole design showing up, together with a vitreous ceiling in the middle of the wall, in order to show other features of Yunnan Province, the changeable patterns of clouds and the fascinating terrace field, all resulted from the plateau topography of Yunnan. With regards to the last one “looking back”, it is the message that visitors can get a glance of Yunnan Province at a macro scope and multi-dimensional perspectives including the history, geography, culture, etc., with these highly refined and interpreted 28
in the preface hall.32
2.2. The Ancient Yunnan—Prehistoric Yunnan exhibition This exhibition hall Ancient Yunnan is next to the preface hall, which consists of five parts according to the timeline: the first part is life explosion. This area provides a brief introduction of the beginning of earth and life, applied the blue and dark blue as the major color, to create an atmosphere of earth (Figure 26,27,28). Next to the area the big bang of Universe, with the color changes to darker and black, the starry sky above, the planets on their own orbits, a small screen playing the eruption of volcano and the crustal movement, boards reading formation and generation of kinds of rocks, samples of rocks displayed in the standing glass boxes, and in the middle of this area a electrified model to demonstrate the explosion of Universe, all of these elements including words, images, video clips, rock samples and model, especially the usage of colors creating a sense of being in the infinite and starry darkness space, the Universe. These messages and information demonstrates from a macro angle, the Universe then narrowing down the micro point, the origin of the land of Yunnan, and how the landforms and characteristics of Yunnan formed and generated through diverse movement of the nature and the universe. Then the next area again back to the color of blue, with an earth model rotating above the dark red pattern of Yunnan map around which are brief introduction of seven neighbored cities and countries of Yunnan land, from a geography place to tell the situation of Yunnan. Finally the last area of the first part is going to tell another character the minerals of Yunnan by showing different samples of metals. At the beginning of this area, following the color of the dark red pattern of Yunnan map, a brown mining micro-diorama starts the interpretation. White is the basic and the main color of this area which is to highlight the colorful and abundant of nonferrous metal of Yunnan. With the color changing to the light blue again, the second part of this exhibition starts, the birth and explosion of life. Once again, this area the same as the first part, from a macro level to micro local perspective, by displaying various models of specimens and presenting the information on the wall of the process and evolution of life in Yunnan
32 Ibid. 29
land, as well playing video clips on big screen to demonstrate the origin of life. There are jellyfishes models suspended. This part to some extent provides people a sense of visiting the submarine world. It is worth to mention that the design of the extended area in the front of some showcases to do the Q&A with visitors. There are some boards on the areas where on the face sides are the questions and on the downside are questions about the content of displays.
Figure 26 The first exhibition
Source YUNNAN PROVINCIAL MUSEUM
Figure 27 The first exhibition
Source YUNNAN PROVINCIAL MUSEUM
Figure 28 Early marine organisms in Yunnan area 30
Source YUNNAN PROVINCIAL MUSEUM Then the rock and dark red again leads visitors to a spacious, the third part of the first exhibition. This part focuses on to present the giant models and frameworks of dinosaurs, together with other huge mammals discovered in Yunnan land. This area builds vivid forests models and scenes where dinosaur lived thousands of years ago and imitated the sounds of dinosaur walking and yelling, from both visual and auditory senses to present visitor a feeling of being there. Meanwhile, this part also displays the excavation process scenes of archaeologists, and the tools they used to work to visitors. At the beginning of this part, there is the information of the process of life evolution from the previous stage monocytes organism to the reptile and mammals era. This area also is designed with the Q&A boards for visitors, and at the end of this area, there is a children center for the little boys and girls to visit more dinosaur models and participate in some drawing dinosaur activities. Then when the color turns to green, the implication of the life of human, the final stage of the life evolution process, it comes to the end of the first exhibition. This part centers on the discovery of Yuan Mou people in Yunnan Province and is surrounded by artificial forests to present that after the extinction of dinosaur, how the primates started to come to the stage, then the homo erectus appeared and finally the human beings evolved (Figure 29). The area presents by displaying the models of skeletons of different primates species, and creating the scenes of habitats to display the environment and situation of the process of the evolution from primates to human beings.
Figure 29 The evolution of human
Source YUNNAN PROVINCIAL MUSEUM Finally, the low and narrow cave and the very early thatched cottage gives a brief 31
introduction and life scene of the Neolithic Age, the era of the embryo of civilization when human started to make pottery. Moreover, this area displays the excavated potteries from different relics of Yunnan and also plays video clips to provide more complete information. At the end of this exhibition, there is a design of hieroglyphic on the rocks, which is also a clue of civilization, and a digital screen for visitors to sign up. The first exhibition through these four parts from four major eras of evolution of life, and centering on the significant discovery in archaeology in Yunnan, provides a systematic and clear clue, from both macro and micro perspectives, and from multi- dimensional aspects science, geographical and biology to visitors the origin of the earth and life by which people can focus on the information of Yunnan land but at the same time to glance the huge space of the Universe and the world. In addition, this exhibition through abundant models and scenes interprets the very early situation and environment of the world and Yunnan land, and through the well design of color and light to create a vivid atmosphere to make a deep impression for public, and the transition between areas is another brilliant element to interpret the whole process, strengthening the sense of progress, even luring visitors to continue the following exhibitions. Not mention to the Q&A part is also an ideal activity to get visitors involved and be actively and learn something. Thus in this exhibition hall, visitors can find all the geological stratifications since 2.5 billion years ago, where the investigations have accomplished by geologists. From a vast expanse of ocean in the prehistoric times to vibrant and distinctive views today, the land of Yunnan has experience tremendous geological changes during 2.5 billion years. Visitors will learn about the magnificence of prehistoric Yunnan in the world by appreciating the vivid and detailed displays of influential geological discoveries, significant sites, importantly ancient fossils, daily life scenes of vital prehistoric life, provided with multi-dimensional auxiliary tools. Furthermore, visitor can through these information and interpretation get a glance of the differences of paleolithic people’s living and working styles, religions, arts and cultures originated from different areas and backgrounds to help visitors fully understand the situation of ancestors during that period from daily life and work. Briefly and generally speaking, as the first exhibition, it demonstrates the complete 32
features of Yunnan at the very beginning time from multiple perspectives, and interprets the features from various auxiliary tools. It is the footstone of the following exhibitions, and is one of the key exhibitions and science education bases in Yunnan Provincial Museum.
2.3. Bronze Age—The Dawn of Civilization exhibition When human beings have the ability to stand, to walk, to make tools, it is the time that the civilization comes. The era when people use diverse resources and materials to settle down, to make a living, to protect themselves, to fight against wild life, and then to be aesthetic. Therefore, bronze as a new technic and an ideal material, which is harder, easier to make and to conserve than copper, was popular. People use bronze to make weapons, tools, tableware, instruments and other goods, and to make patterns on the bronze as art works. With the widely use of Bronze, it opens a new page of human and accelerates the process of the history of the world, which is an epoch-making invention. In Yunnan Province, the curtain of the civilization of Bronze Age, tracing back to no less than 3800 years ago, was slowly pulled open with the beginning of people smelting and casting copper implements. The late period of the Warring States witnessed the diverse and colorful bronze civilization of Dian Kingdom created by the gathering of different ethnic groups. And the period between the end of the Warring States and the beginning of the East Han Dynasty sees a flouring time of the bronze culture in Yunnan, when people adopted unique wax technique called “Shi La Fa”, and applied realistic art form to depict every aspect of Yunnan society in the ancient times. Those technique and art form has been treated as a rare and unrepeatable case in the history of bronze art culture. The charm of Dian Bronze art culture lies in the animal images realistically carved or placed in bronze vessels. In the comparison with mysterious, horrible and threatening decoration in bronze vessels produced in Central Plains during Shang and Zhou Dynasties in China, these images molded in vivid designs have appeared to be more natural and fresh.33 Following the very short passageway, visitors will arrive at the next exhibition hall— The Dawn of Civilization (Figure 30-35), which is closely next to the end of the first
33 Yunnan Provincial Museum, Visitors brochures-Bronze Age—The Dawn of Civilization exhibition, 2015. 33
one. This exhibition contains mainly four areas. The preface area is spacious and bright, which highlights the theme of the Dawn of the Civilization of Human. In philosophy, the light implies the meaning of wisdom. The usage of the bright and light in this area, to some content as well to imply the dawn of civilization is the representative of the wisdom of people. And in the front of visitors, there is a wall colored with large area of bronze and brown, and carved with patterns, which is more direct and impressive for people to realize the focus. In the two sides walls, visitors can learn the information from a map about the development of bronze in different areas in Yunnan land coupled with the description and explanation under the map on the left wall, and on the right wall, there is a huge embossment presenting the daily life of people in Bronze Age. On the back wall, it is a preface and introduction of this ne era, and looking up, there are white three-dimensional cloudlike decorations filled in bronze color on every edge. The element of bronze can be seen in every designed detail here. This area provides a clear view of the Neolithic Period. Then a wooden path leads people to the next area, visitors will see the scenes providing with wooden stilted building surrounded by artificial plantations and printed sky image as the background, and the working scene of making bronze, which copies the life scenes of indigenous people and is to present them to visitors at the site where the bronze first was discovered in Yunnan through which the arrangement aims to create a vivid and lively atmosphere for public. Then the path reaches to a fork where one is an exit arranging benches for visitor to have a rest, and another is the next area to continue the exhibition. When visitors come to the third area, the biggest area of this exhibition—display hall, where a quantity of exquisite bronze works exhibited in the glass boxes. These collections are classified with unearthed sites and time, also accords with the timeline of the development of Bronze culture in Yunnan, which put the focus on the ancient of Dian Kingdom, to fully display the splendid and glorious achievements of Yunnan bronze civilization, starting from the beginning of the Bronze Age of Yunnan, to the Golden days of Bronze of Yunnan. In addition, this area mentions the developments of bronze civilization in other areas of Yunnan, ranging from Shang and Zhou Dynasties Period, the Spring and Autumn Periods to the West and East Han Dynasties, and the 34
battle and the immigration and the relationships between Dian People and Kunming People. There are not too much decoration and design in this are, where the ceiling even seems without any decoration from which the pipes appear. And the whole lights also focus on the show cases and articles to stress the color of bronze. At the end of this exhibition, there is an open room providing seats for people to watch the documentary clips telling the story of Dian Kingdom and its legend.
Figure 30 The beginning of Bronze period
Source YUNNAN PROVINCIAL MUSEUM
Figure 31 The site discovering bronze in Yunnan
Source YUNNAN PROVINCIAL MUSEUM
35
Figure 32 The scenery of bronze making
Source YUNNAN PROVINCIAL MUSEUM
Figure 33 Exhibition hall
Source YUNNAN PROVINCIAL MUSEUM
Figure 34 Bronze items
Source YUNNAN PROVINCIAL MUSEUM
36
Figure 35 “Niu Hu Tong An” the highlight collection of the museum
Source YUNNAN PROVINCIAL MUSEUM Through this exhibition, visitors can learn the information and acquire the knowledge about the Bronze Age of Yunnan land, and the history of Dian Kingdom and the process of becoming one of territories of West Han Dynasty, and other tribes during that period. And through these bronze articles and objects displayed, public can appreciate the exquisite art works made in thousands of years ago and the very early aesthetic of our ancestor and their wisdom, and can through the patterns on the bronze or the scenes it showed create their own interpretation and understanding of that era. What is more, visitors can find QR Codes (Figure 11) under not all but some articles, which are the “smart guide”. Those are usually the marvelous and significant and renowned collections, and if they are interested in them or fond of them, they can first download the application, then scan the QR code instantly to check the interpretation online. 37
Figure 36 Instruction of the QR audio guide
Source YUNNAN PROVINCIAL MUSEUM
2.4. Influential Clan in Yunnan—Yunnan in the Wei Jin, the Northern and Southern Dynasties West Han Period saw the golden days of Bronze culture while East Han and Wei Jin Dynasties were the darkness days when the situation in China was turbulent in political and the vicissitudes of dynasties were day and night. Under such circumstances, although bronze culture of Yunnan encountered its waned time, the battles and turmoil boosted the movement of population integrated when a great quantity of Han group 38
immigrated into Yunnan, and resulted in the spring of the Han culture spreading in this land. The period from the beginning of East Han Dynasty to Tianbao year of the Tang Dynasty was a great time of ethnic integration and cultural transformation, when the local leaders “Yi Shuai” together with early Han immigrants “Hao Min”, after mutual exclusion and compromises, developed into “influential clans in Yunnan” to control the local regime and rule over native regions.34 The advent and immigration of Han power and culture to the border of Southwest China Sichuan, Guizhou and Yunnan, on one hand fueled the boom of the inscription culture of South Yunnan, and on the other hand made the funeral rituals of burying without tombs in Yunnan changed. But in the process of the spreading of Han culture, it got some difficulties in reaching to remote and isolated communities scattered between mountains. As a result, this kind of pattern set up a formation of multi-ethnic Yunnan and quickened the pace of unification of multiple civilizations of Chinese nationalities.35 This exhibition is next to the Bronze Age, starting from the end of the video room of the last display. This area divides into mainly three parts (Figure 37-38). The first part is Southward Migration of Han People of which the exhibitions from the life aspect to exhibit the tools that people used and produced at that time, and also to present the life environment and situation which shows the change of the style of architecture and the way of rearing livestock from previous period. The design of background and color still is natural, getting brighter than the previous exhibition of Bronze, where the influence of Han group can be seen in some aspects. Then the second part is Southward Spread of Han style. This part mainly shows the influence of Han culture and the introduction of Chinese Characters in Yunnan land during the turbulence of Wei Jin Period at Central Plain of China, and the complex situation of different powers in Yunnan area, and the conflicts among different powers in Yunnan, and how the surname of aristocratic families got developed and strong. Through the stone tablets and the different font of characters of local minorities exhibited, public can see the glory and the culture of local powerful tribes and inhabitants at that age. Moreover, this area provides a screen for
34 Yunnan Provincial Museum, Visitors brochures- Influential Clan in Yunnan—Yunnan in the Wei Jin, the Northern and Southern Dynasties, 2015. 35 Ibid. 39
visitors to do some activities including quiz and writing the very old Chinese characters to make them get a better memory of the information. And the last part of this exhibition is Integration of Yunnan Minorities with the Han Nationality. This area presents the copied mysterious Grave of Huo Chengsi, a prefect in three counties of Yunnan province at that time, which is the idea of viewing death as living. At the end of the exhibition, there is a name wall divided by a blue river showing the Family names of big powers as a conclusion. From this exhibition presenting the clue of integration between Han and minorities: the immigration into south of Han group, the rising of influential clans on the border of Sichuan, Guizhou, and Yunnan, and the grave of Huo Chengsi, visitors can learn the history and culture of that period of Yunnan and China, also see the ups and downs of different powerful clans in Yunnan, and appreciate the brilliant art of calligraphy of Cuan font.
Figure 37 The beginning of the Influential Clan in Yunnan
Source YUNNAN PROVINCIAL MUSEUM 40
Figure 38 The wall of surname of aristocratic families
Source YUNNAN PROVINCIAL MUSEUM
2.5. The Art of Buddhist Kingdom—Nanzhao and Dali Kingdom The turmoil dynasties went to the end with the regions unified by Tang Dynasty. The Nanzhao and Dali Kingdom established in 649 and ended in 1253, which lasted for 604 years during the Tang and Song Dynasties. In the early of Tang Dynasty, there were ancestors of Bai People and Yi People who resided in Dali district. In 738, a local strong power of which the leader was Meng Shezhao conquered six other local regimes to build up Nanzhao regime and expanded the domain in all directions. The region at that time reached in Southwest reached to Mandalay area, Myanmar, in Southeast to the north of Vietnam, and in Northeast to Zunyi, Guizhou Province. 165 years later, in 903, a powerful minister Zheng Maisi launched a coup resulting in the destruction of Nanzhao Kingdom. Then in 938, a local Bai People named Duan Siping set up Dali Kingdom, which was destroyed by the Yuan Dynasty in 1253. The two periods of Nanzhao and Dali Kingdoms were fertile time in the first aspect for the booming of social economy and meanwhile for the further and deepened exchanges and communication with Central Plains and surrounding areas, which pushed the integration of culture forward in Yunnan as the multi-ethnics community, in addition, Buddhism got rapidly developed. During the periods of the two Kingdoms Nanzhao and Dali, a branch of Buddhisim Azhali was regarded as national religion. During the Dali regime, there were 22 emperors, but nine of them abdicated their throne to be monks, which was the regime of emperor-monk unparalleled in 41
Chinese history.36 As a result, there were quite a lot Buddha images and statues made in the periods of Nanzhao and Dali which are distinct from other Buddhism area at home and abroad. The name of this exhibition is The Art of Buddhist Kingdom when were the glory days of the spreading of the Buddhist culture, and the theme of exhibition divides two aspects: the history of during Nanzhao and Dali Periods in chronological order and the Buddhism culture. It starts with the legend of the rise of the Meng and the history of Nanzhao Kingdom (Figure 39-44). When visitors arrive at this part, with the color darkened and the bright focused, a great city wall is the entrance of the exhibition of which the design copies the old town of Nanzhao Kingdom, welcoming people to start the visit. And go inside, there is an annular space, where at the middle of this area, a small golden Buddha image set in the showcase revolving itself to public, who is quite vital for the Buddhist culture in Yunnan. And on the both sides, the one shows the fragments through wall paintings of the legend of the Buddha and the first King of Nanzhao Kingdom, and another side displays more Buddha images and plays the video clips about the first King of Nanzhao Kingdom. The second part centers on the discovered grotto scenes of the Nanzhao Kings and the historic records to present the relationship and the connections between Nanzhao Kingdom and Tang Dynasty during that period through the copied scenes of grotto and wall paintings and models. Then the third part is the ups and downs of Dali Kingdom. This area shows the information and history of Dali Kingdom and the story of Duan Family who were the Kings governing Yunnan land, and also makes a sand table of the city form of Dali at that time. Finally the last part is the world of Buddha. In this part, visitors will see a very huge Buddhas Scroll Painting made by a Chinese artist Zhang Shengwen serving for Dali Kingdom. This scroll painting tells the scenes of the Dali King leading his official to worship Buddhas, and various Buddhas and their images that Dali Kingdom worshiped, and the sixteen Dali Kings participated in worship through which mainly reflects that the Buddhist culture was quite widely embraced from up to bottom in Dali Kingdom Period, when from the King to the ordinary people valued the Buddhas, and the
36 Yunnan Provincial Museum, Visitors brochures-The Art of Buddhist Kingdom—Nanzhao and Dali Kingdom, 2015. 42
significant meaning in Dali Kingdom and the copied version of original manuscript. It is quite important, for those images painted by Zhang Shengwen later become the standard of the Buddha images making. Except the Buddha scroll painting, this area also builds the different Buddhist branches images and scenes discovered in a grotto in Dali area, which reflects that at that time different reliefs could be compatible and acceptant by Dali People, and displays abundant of various exquisite Buddha statues discovered in The Chongsheng Temple And The Three-Pagoda, the royal temple in Dali Kingdom. The Art of Buddhist Kingdom exhibition, from a macro perspective, presents the key points of the periods of Nanzhao and Dail to make public acquired the basic knowledge of the two Kingdoms, and introduces the Buddha cultures and its glorious development at that time, moreover, reflects in these details and connected aspects the prosperous of Nanzhao and Dali Kingdoms, in order to play its educational role to public.
Figure 39 The beginning of Buddhist Kingdom
Source YUNNAN PROVINCIAL MUSEUM
Figure 40 The beginning of Buddhist Kingdom
Source YUNNAN PROVINCIAL MUSEUM 43
Figure 41 Scroll of Buddha legend
Source BAIDU
Figure 42 Buddha images
Source YUNNAN PROVINCIAL MUSEUM
Figure 43 Buddha scroll painting
Source YUNNAN PROVINCIAL MUSEUM
44
Figure 44 Statues of Buddha images in the cave
Source BAIDU
2.6. Exploitation and Defense—Yunnan in the Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties The background and situations in Yunnan Province in these periods was more complicated, which strengthened the integration and formation of multi-ethnic and the diversification of social development. In 1253, Kublai Khan, a minority, Mongolia group led 100,000 soldiers from Central Plains down to the South, across the Jin Shajiang River conquering Dali Kingdom and expanded the domain towards the borders based on the districts of Bai and Yi groups. Then in 1274, Kublai Khan assigned a politician Sai dianchi to establish Yunnan Province, moving the political center from Dali to Kunming.37 Then when the throne went to Ming Dynasty, in 1381, three generals of founding the Dynasty Fu Youde, Lan Yu and Mu Ying commanded 140,000 soldiers to suppress Yunnan, captured the city Dail in the next year and unified Yunnan. Then in the same year, Ming government established Yunnan administrative district, and alter the name of Zhongqing district in the Yuan Dynasty to Yunnan district office. In the 22nd Yongle year in the Ming Dynasty, the frontier areas resided by Dai group and other ethnic groups were included into the territory of the Ming Dynasty.38 In 1658, Qing government dispatched the army into Yunnan, and changed Yunnan
37 Yunnan Provincial Museum, Visitors brochures-Exploitation and Defense—Yunnan in the Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties, 2015. 38 Yunnan Provincial Museum, Visitors brochures-Exploitation and Defense—Yunnan in the Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties, 2015. 45
district office to Yunnan Province. In 1681, army of Qing Dynasty was sent to settle down the revolt schemed by Wu Sangui in Yunnan. Qing authorities reformed the manor system and the land system of farming work by stationing troops, appointing government officials as local leaders and exploring the frontiers.39 These three Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties are the most vitally periods in Yunnan history which influenced greatly in social, economy and especially in the diversification of ethnic and culture. During the three periods, a large number of Han, Mongolia and Man groups as well other ethnic immigrants flowed into Yunnan region, living harmoniously with the indigenous people, which broke the situation that ethnic groups are more than Han immigrants, and formed the pattern that national amalgamation was dominated by Han People. These three periods also left a plenty of historic materials about the ancestors of Yunnan ethnic groups for the later. This exhibition divides into two areas. The first area is to present the situation and development of Yunnan under the government of the three Dynasties Yuan, Ming and Qing, focusing on the establishment of Yunnan Province in Yuan Dynasty and the achievements during Yuan Period, which shows from the culture, the social, and the economic dimensions to public, seeing in the establishment of diverse academies and Confucius Temples in Yunnan and the widely spreading of Han culture and using of Chinese Characters within local area, and the story of Zheng He’s Voyage (Figure 45- 47), etc. Through the historical materials and documents such as a series of Stone Monument with figures Stories about Confucius, Ivory Carving Screen of Cursive and Running Scripts of Calligraphies, the ship model of Zheng He’s Voyage, and other articles aim to show the realistic history, formation of multi-ethnics, and the original cultural patterns of every minority group to public. Visitors also can see the change of Kunming city from the very old map exhibited to know a more complete history.
39 Ibid. 46
Figure 45 The ship model of Zheng He’s Voyage
Source YUNNAN PROVINCIAL MUSEUM The second area of this exhibition is Art of Fresco in Yunnan, which is to present the diverse local cultures and co-existence of different religious in Yunnan land from Yuan Dynasty. This part for the start, from multi aspects to display the history to people, where visitors can appreciate the frescos, see the instruments, opera masks, and various and exquisite handicrafts in this period that minority groups made ranging from costumes and ornaments to the porcelains and other jades. What is more, public can see the different religious and their typical articles respectively, and their development in Yunnan (Figure 14). This display provides visitors in different angles the idea of how the multi-ethnics cultures formed and generated gradually, and what were the situation and background. These Periods were the key time for the situation formed of co-existence of diverse cultures and minority groups in Yunnan. 47
Figure 46 Masks of different minority cultures
Source YUNNAN PROVINCIAL MUSEUM
Figure 47 Hieroglyphs
Source LIU SHENGYU
2.7. Contemporary Era—Yunnan In a New Age When the page turns to the recent time, notwithstanding Yunnan nests in the remote southwest of China, it is connected with the whole nation tightly. Especially at every big event and historic turning point in both Central China and Yunnan, it is in the political changes that they have mutually influenced each other from the very beginning. However, it is not until recent one hundred years of the twentieth century that Yunnan gets to lure attention it deserves. The one hundred years of turbulence witnessed the painstaking efforts of Yunnan people and scarifications with their blood and life for the liberation of China in the anti- imperialist and anti-feudal movement and fight for democratic rights at home. Yunnan 48
was the major battlefield and the beginning. Not even mention that during the War of Resistance Against Japan, it is those people, who have been known as outdated and primitive, that had completed the construction of Yunnan-Burma Road in less than a year but at the cost of blood and life, and opened the renowned Hump Air Route, burdening the responsibility as a liaison in Yunnan region. Moreover, Yunnan soldiers traveled a great distance to Central China to assist fighting against the Japanese invaders in the bloody Tai-er-zhuang Battle. And in west Yunnan Resistance War, thousands of soldiers and civilians had once again driven Japanese invaders out of China at painful cost. Contributions that Yunnan made during that time were not only to the battlefield, but also to the education field which sees in the establishment of Southwest Associated University in Kunming, a university to train a great amount of brilliant and outstanding people who had played a significant role in the uprising and advancement of Chinese civilization, even of the world.40 Led by the aisle, visitors will arrive at the next exhibition, where two huge and high red double doors decorated with a plenty of golden small spheres welcome them, providing people a very strong feeling of pressure and heaviness through which implies the situation of that time, the chaotic and the war, and then through six themes and historic figures presents the ups and downs of Yunnan at contemporary period (Figure 48-50).
Figure 48 The beginning of Contemporary Era
Source YUNNAN PROVINCIAL MUSEUM
40 Yunnan Provincial Museum, Visitors brochures-Contemporary Era—Yunnan In a New Age, 2015. 49
Figure 49 Architecture in Kunming city at that time
Source YUNNAN PROVINCIAL MUSEUM
Figure 50 Yunnan-Vietnam Railway
Source YUNNAN PROVINCIAL MUSEUM Following the guide, the first one part shows up, the turbulence of Yunnan, when the period was around the end of Qing Dynasty and the First Opium War. This part presents the situations focusing on Yunnan, both China and the World at that time to explain the complex conditions in Yunnan. Visitors will see the historic buildings and life scenes in Kunming city from the restored architecture, vehicles and other tools, and the commercial trade through kinds of bank note from different countries, and the economic and social development. Then through the misty and dust time, there came the stage of modern city, the first railway Yunnan-Vietnam Railway in Southwest of China built, and the spread of electric light in Kunming and other areas in Yunnan, and the establishment of the first hydropower station in Southwest of Yunnan, etc. With regard to this point, although during that period, the invasions of Western countries brought the tragedy to local people, they also introduced advanced technic and knowledge to Yunnan area. Visitors 50
can get on the train designed in the exhibition and seat there to watch the video clips playing the history of that time. And the next part comes to the period that local people fought for the freedom. This part shows numerous historic documents to people, such as kinds of uprisings in Yunnan, and the establishment of Yunnan Military Academy, and the efforts that people made. Moreover, visitors also can see the suits and tools wore and used by generals and vital people, which arises to some content the feeling of enthusiasm. For the fourth part is the period of War of Resistance Against Japan (Figure 51). This part presents the big events at that time such as the establishment of The National SouthWest Associated University in Kunming which cultivated a plenty of excellent masters in different field for the victory and advancement of China and the world, and the opened Hump Air Route, and the famous musician NieEr, the writer of the Chinese National Anthem. In addition, visitors in this part can see the situations and environment designed according to the historic material, and the video clips from a big screen to impress the memory and experience of that time. Finally, the last part is the Dawn of the victory. This part tells the history of the liberation of Yunnan Province during the Civil War. All the exhibitions end up with a huge colorful wall painting of multi-ethnics groups getting together and wearing their costumes, coupled with a map of Yunnan.
Figure 51 Revolution in Yunnan area
Source YUNNAN PROVINCIAL MUSEUM 51
The last exhibition of the timeline shows in the a hundred years of contemporary Yunnan to public to understand the profound changes. And the designs in this exhibition applied different lights and materials to create the atmosphere, “the Dusk of Old Town”, “the Gloomy Battlefield”, and “the Dawn of the victory” vividly to describe the past significant events. From the entrance of this exhibition, a “T” shape circuitous road, and curved walls lead visitors to the historic scene, providing a sense of tense in time and space, till the bright and wide exit, releasing the tension and making a deep impression to visitors. These six permanent exhibitions in chronological order in both macro and micro time and space provides visitors systematic and complete information and knowledge of the history and the process of development of Yunnan, and in multi-dimensional angles presents the features and diverse cultures of Yunnan land and its local people to public, and in an aesthetic perspective shows visitors a feast of visual through the numerous exquisite artworks and masterpieces, and in different senses impresses people with rich experience, and from different senses to strengthen the experience of visit, and in active activities gets visitors involved in and reacts with them.
2.8. Flaming Kiln Fire—Ceramics Collections of Yunnan Provincial Museum Potteries and porcelains, at the very early time, were produced as the vital living utensils. Then with advancement of human history and social, these ceramics articles have been given the value of aesthetic rather than the original usage as tools, which results in the situation that people have started from the very long time ago to collect these objects as valuable artworks and of the flourish of ceramics production both in Royal families and ordinary people. China Porcelain is renowned throughout the world, from the Tang and Song Dynasties, it was sold abroad via both land and sea, accompanied by the production technology and process spreading to the East and West countries. Especially Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties saw the glory of it. In China, in the Antique Market, the value of one piece article of porcelain, for instance the Blue and White Porcelain of Yuan Dynasty reaches around one hundred million and up. Even nowadays, the porcelain are still popular which are easily to see in the kitchen 52
of ordinary people. In particular in the Art of Tea, potteries and porcelains are welcomed among tea drinkers as the utensils for the tea. It is obviously to see that during the long process of human civilization, ceramics have been maintaining constant changes and innovations as an art of fire and earth. In Yunnan, there are also a couple of renowned local ceramics manufactures producing diverse potteries and porcelains. Yunnan Provincial Museum has been devoting itself to collect ceramics of Yunnan region since the day it was established. After more than 60 years efforts, the amount of collected articles of ceramic in Yunnan Provincial Museum has reached no less than 4,000 pieces, covering most of, although not all, treasured categories and unique articles, especially the indigenous blue-and- white porcelains with celadon glaze and the purple potteries in Jianshui.41 These collections of Yunnan Provincial are adequate to be arranged a ceramics exhibition for public to appreciate the different exquisite and excellent ceramic artworks from China and local. This Ceramic Hall first showing a huge colorful ceramics wall which is put small pieces together at the entrance to arranges three sections according to the place of production (Figure 52-54): potteries and porcelains in Jing Dezhen, the indigenous ceramics in Yunnan and the purple potteries in Jianshui through which the museum intends to introduce the development of the history and cultural background of pottery and porcelains in China, and in addition, presents the local art in Yunnan to visitor throughout the world. By displaying the ceramics in Yunnan and those from the royal kilns in Central China at the same period, visitors can have a comparison of the general culture in these two areas, which is the highlight of the exhibition. Visitors can almost appreciate as much as possible the different kinds and types produced in different periods and dynasties, and also through the diversely colorful articles know the aesthetic of the previous people.
41 Yunnan Provincial Museum, Visitors brochures-Flaming Kiln Fire—Ceramics Collections of Yunnan Provincial Museum, 2015. 53
Figure 52 The porcelain wall
Source LIU SHENGYU Those ceramics to a great content, enriches the number of collections of Yunnan Provincial Museum, and also as a result, Yunnan Provincial Museum is the most distinctive and the most powerful study institution of this field in Yunnan Province. This exhibition from the aesthetic level focuses on the art aspect of Yunnan to show the quite significant history of excellent China porcelain to visitors.
Figure 53 Exhibition hall of porcelains
Source BAIDU 54
Figure 54 Exhibition hall of porcelains
Source BAIDU
3. The management of temporary exhibitions Except those above temporary exhibitions, Yunnan Provincial Museum also introduces plentiful exhibitions into museum for public. Those displays mainly come from the national and international exchange exhibitions, collections and articles with other museums within China. The duration of temporary exhibition normally is three months for each. For the national exchange such as previously several exhibitions: I Came From Ancient Times—Exhibition of the Relics From Zhou Koudian Site Museum (Figure 55), East Wind Blowing Westwards—European Porcelain Highlights From Shanghai History Museum (Figure 56), The contemporary Tangka Art Exhibition held by Yunnan Provincial Museum and a local Culture Communication Co.,ltd, Yunnan Tian Gu Lei Yin, and introduced from Lhasa Tibet (Figure 57), and the Exhibition Tour Tea Horse Road (Figure 58)—Eight Provinces Relics Exhibition, proposed by Chinese Museums Association, hosted by Yunnan Provincial Museum, involved in other seven provinces Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, Guangxi, Sichuan, Tibet, Shanxi, Gansu and Qinghai through the historic scenes, tea plantation, and the process to show the historic background, unique and brilliant culture, which is the biggest exhibition tour about Tea Horse Road in China so far, and the Exhibition of Gu Qin-- Chongqing China Three Gorges Museum (Figure 59-62), the oldest Chinese plucked stringed instrument which has been nominated in the UNESCO Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity in 2003. Those exhibitions reach to different provinces and regions as well 55
local, and covers diverse aspects: culture and art of ethnics and religions, history, science, painting and calligraphy, artworks of wood carving and porcelains and personal photographic exhibition.
Figure 55 Exhibition of I Came From Ancient Times
Source YUNNAN PROVINCIAL MUSEUM
Figure 56 Exhibition of East Wind Blowing Westwards
Source YUNNAN PROVINCIAL MUSEUM 56
Figure 57 Exhibition of The contemporary Tangka Art Exhibition
Source YUNNAN PROVINCIAL MUSEUM
Figure 58 Exhibition of Tea Horse Road
Source YUNNAN PROVINCIAL MUSEUM
Figure 59 Gu Qin
Source YUNNAN PROVINCIAL MUSEUM 57
Figure 60 Volunteers performance
Source YUNNAN PROVINCIAL MUSEUM
Figure 61 Exhibition of Gu Qin
Source YUNNAN PROVINCIAL MUSEUM
Figure 62 The statue of Boya, a Chinese historical person
Source YUNNAN PROVINCIAL MUSEUM 58
With regard to the foreign exhibitions, they are normally introduced by Yunnan Provincial Museum together with other several museums within China. For instance one of the previous exhibitions: Phantom of Africa—Exhibition of the Rare Masks from Central Africa (Figure 63-64). This exhibition exhibited 118 pieces of exquisite masks and related 14 pieces of instruments and ceremonies and rituals scenes through which provided a chance to Yunnan local people as well others at home and abroad in the first place to see the mysterious country, the daily life of Africa indigenous people and their religious events and other activities, and in the second place to learn information and know the mysterious and balanced relations that the African built with the world, their ancestors, and divinities, or in an aesthetic place to appreciate the value and the beauty.
Figure 63 Exhibition of Phantom of Africa
Source YUNNAN PROVINCIAL MUSEUM
59
Figure 64 Teenagers learning group
Source YUNNAN PROVINCIAL MUSEUM
And the Eternal City—The Glory of the Ancient City of Rome from Italy (Figure 65- 66), more than 200 pieces(sets) collections exhibited of this exhibition were selected from Colosseum, Fabled Golden Palace, Museo Nazionale Romano, Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Firenze and other units, and displays of this exhibition were based on the classic route from the Forum of Augustus to Arco di Costantino displaying the magnificent and marvelous architectures relics sites and exquisite statues of Rome during the first to the fourth centuries to public to appreciate these outstanding and remarkable masterpieces, which were not only the representatives in architecture field at that time, but reflected the situation and background of history and culture, even the politics. The days from the start to the glory of Rome were all marked and recorded in these bricks and tiles. Furthermore, this exhibition also displayed various scenes of Rome, where visitors could have a glance of the emperors of Rome, the scholars, the masters and the daily life of ordinary people.42
42 Yunnan Provincial Museum official website, (transl. by the author), Available on the internet: http://www.ynmuseum.org/detail/663.html. 60
Figure 65 Statues of the exhibition of the Eternal City
Source YUNNAN PROVINCIAL MUSEUM
Figure 66 Exhibition of the Eternal City
Source YUNNAN PROVINCIAL MUSEUM
And recently another international touring exhibition Sissy and Hungary—The Magnificent Life of Hungarian Aristocracy in the 17-19th Century from Hungary National Museum (Figure 67-70), this exhibition covers around 140 pieces(sets) collections, which is divided into five parts: the Habsburg and Hungary, clothes and garments, daily life, religions and weapon equipment. Through these brilliant and exquisite articles and objects, visitors can understand that what were the history background, and how were the royal people’s life at that time, and what were their aesthetic and fashion style, and even what were the rituals and habits from the table setting, and their political situation and military power. All the splendid collections even the smallest one from multi dimensions and details reflects the life and scene of Sissy and Hungary. 61
Figure 67 Opening ceremony of exhibition Sissy and Hungary
Source ARTRON NET
Figure 68 The beginning of exhibition Sissy and Hungary
Source LIU SHENGYU 62
Figure 69 The post of exhibition Sissy and Hungary
Source LIU SHENGYU
Figure 70 Exhibition of Sissy and Hungary
Source ARTRON NET These international touring exhibition introduced into Yunnan Provincial Museum in a quite great content benefits visitors especially local people without going abroad but being home to learn other cultures, to understand different culture background, to know the diverse world and the colorful life, and to appreciate the diversity, to respect the difference, to value the heritage human inherits from ancestors, to cherish the life they enjoy, and to take the responsibility of protecting the heritage and carrying them forward to the further and future generations. 63
In terms of the selection of temporary exhibitions, the museum also takes the voice of public into consideration to arrange displays, as the coming exhibition with the theme of Yunnan People during the War of Resistance Against Japan. This exhibition following the advice from visitors is arranged for the elderly group who took part in the War of Resistance Against Japan and their descendant, to commemorate them and the effort and sacrifice that they made for Yunnan and China. In general speaking, these exhibitions that Yunnan Provincial Museum arranges for public firstly presents the complete process and the history of Yunnan and the fruits and glories it got within the long history river, which is fair to say that is a better way to know Yunnan from different aspects in the limited time and space; secondly, under the globalized situation world, provides and creates a platform for people to have chances to appreciate not only the exhibitions of Yunnan, bur the displays and exhibitions home and abroad, national and worldwide in a wide range, which is vital for people especially the younger and future generations to see the diversification of the world and social, to establish and foster their values and horizons, what is more important is to educate them to understand, to embrace the differences. However, there are at the same time a great room to improve in the management and arrangement of exhibitions which will address in the next chapter.
4. Management of virtual museum and other digital platforms 4.1. The change of museums in digital age The advent of digital age, especially the web 2.0 and various smart products, witness the changes beyond description in the digital time from the whole world to individuals, which in a great content, shifts the way that people consume, work, live, etc., and tightens the connections that people and their surroundings. Hi-tech products and cyber network and various social media have made numerous information resources and channels handy and instantly where people can hardly miss any news or event happening at home and abroad. This revolution of digital also spreads to museum field, where museums make full use of this trend to provide more services and information for visitors and to improve their managements of the museum. As museum professionals cope with the challenges of 64
“being digital”, 43 meeting the information needs of online visitors has become an important part of the museum professional’s job.44 Over the past decade, the number of online museum visitors has increased significantly, and these changes have posed challenges for museum professionals seeking to understand how the digital museum resources they make available online factor into the daily lives of their online visitors.45 New information technologies offer museum professionals new ways of bringing information about their collections directly to their audiences. These information resources are used by many different online museum visitors, from recent visitors interested in learning more about the museum’s collections, to academic researchers at distant universities searching for particular objects in the museum’s holdings. The wide variety of uses and users of museum information resources makes it critical for museum researchers and professionals to explore the use of museum information resources, in- house and online.46 It is obviously to see the great influence of digital media everywhere. Nowadays, almost museums not only in the world, but also in China run their own official websites for the convenience for museumgoers. Through the website and other platforms museums provide conveniences for people, and in return, museums will get popularity from the uses of visitors of these platforms. As a national museum in China, there is no exception in Yunnan Provincial Museum. Yunnan Provincial Museum following the wind of digital age, provides both offline and online exhibitions by running an official website and two social applications: Weibo official account and Wechat official account (Figure 71-72), which are Chinese
43 Ken Hamma, Becoming digital, Bulletin of the American Society for Information Science and Technology 30
(5): 2004b, pp.11-13.
44 Marty, Paul F., The evolving roles of information professionals in museums, Bulletin of the American Society for Information Science and Technology 30 (5): 2004, pp.20-23.
45 Marty, Paul F., Museum Websites and Museum Visitors: Digital Museum Resources and their Use, Museum Management & Curatorship, 23 (1), 2008, pp.81-99. 46 Ben Booth, Understanding the information needs of visitors to museums. Museum
Management and Curatorship 17 (2), 1999, pp.139-157. 65
mutually social applications the same as Facebook and Messengers and enjoy the most users in China. The official website makes visitors had alternative to visit the exhibitions, and also prepared online for the offline coming visit, what is more, catch the temporary displays which are removed from the exhibition hall.
Figure 71 QR code of Yunnan Provincial Museum Wechat account
Source YUNNAN PROVINCIAL MUSEUM
Figure 72 The home page of Yunnan Provincial Museum Weibo account
Source LIU SHENGYU The online exhibitions focuses on two main aspects. The first one is the display of exhibitions simultaneous as the offline, and another one is to display more articles and collections that do not exhibit in the offline exhibition hall, where people can appreciate more collections that are unavailable offline (Figure 73-74). It is fair to say that the online exhibitions is the ideal choice for those people who want to go to visit the museum but cannot go due to kinds of reasons. For firstly, this information of online exhibition reaches to almost all the basic information of the 66
museum. When visitors open the first page, there is a green arrow pointing to the museum and showing the introduction of the Yunnan Provincial Museum, and a revolving image centering on the museum and its surroundings, to show from the comprehensive perspectives of the location and the situation of the museum, where visitors can pick a special site surrounding the museum and zoom in or zoom out to see it clearly. In addition, on the screen, there are buttons to click and choose. Visitors can follow the orders that the screen shows to click the button of the next scene, or can choose contents and exhibitions that what they want to visit from clicking the button of scenes selection, and at the same time, visitors also can control the background music and the revolving image by clicking the buttons to stop or to play. For a better visual experience, there is a button to watch in the full screen, which shows the high definition images to visitors, and there are different background music matched every online exhibition. In this point, it is more direct and complete to see the whole construction and arrangement of the museum than in the museum site. Secondly, the online exhibitions are flexible for visitors to visit. Without any limited factors, people can browse the website and the exhibitions at anytime and anywhere. Whenever the time is and wherever the visitors are, they can watch the exhibitions as they want. Furthermore, visitors can choose and start their visit after they have a general view and idea of the whole exhibitions information from online platform so that they can focus on what they are interested in most. Meanwhile, visitors who missing the temporary exhibitions can catch some from the online website. The online exhibitions provides some significant and classic temporary exhibitions for public but not all. Thirdly, the information guidance from the exterior of the museum to the interior are clear. Online visitors can follow the arrows and guidance that the screen shows to reach to the next scene and exhibition orderly, or also can go back to the previous view and scene. In every online scene, it will show a panorama automatically to visitors, and in every fork or side path, there will be clear indication to tell visitors where is going to. Thus visitors do not need to worry about getting lost or confused. The online exhibitions from the website arranges as complete as possible service and exhibitions for public. In addition, visitors can not only visit the exhibitions, but at the same time check the information of the overview of the previous exhibitions and the coming exhibitions and 67
the available exhibition from the website in order to arrange their visit. People could enjoy or review the exhibitions as if they were in the museum hall in-house and online through the website by picking up collections and exhibitions what they are interested in. When it comes to the collections display online, there are nine classifications in detail covering Bronze, Porcelains, Jade, Buddhism, Painting and Calligraphy, Sundry Articles, Modern Times, Minor Ethnics and Natural Specimen available for visitors in the official website, where visitors can pick up the articles which they are fond of to appreciate and learn some information. However, the online exhibitions so far are only available for Chinese version, and English version is in the process of construction. Although the online exhibitions are getting more and more completely nowadays, and quite convenient for people to visit the numerous exhibitions from every concern of the world, there are and will be question marks arising: do virtual museums undermine or reinforce traditional conceptions of authenticity of art works and museum visits? How are these websites experienced? Is the visitors offered greater freedom to engage with museum spaces and their contents online, or are the power dynamics of conventional institutions reaffirmed? How do digital collections affect both encounters with and understandings of museums? What happens when everyday people begin to produce then content of virtual museums, appropriating roles of curator and even museum director?... Do online museums encourage active learning, or do they perpetuate passivity by inviting computer users simply to “point and click” on selected images? Are educational goals undermined when online visitors become consumers who purchase items from virtual museum shops?47 It is without any doubt that the digital age brings countless conveniences and great improvement for the human beings and the “revolution” in the museums field, but it also poses profound thinking for people in particular in culture heritage field: how to bring the valuable heritage forward to wider groups and further generations in the near and dynamic future in an effective and appropriate way in the storm of digital age? More important, what are the goals and aims that museums in the digital age through the online services and platform want to express to public?
47 Janet, New Museum Theory and Practice, p.228. 68
Yunnan Provincial Museum, as a new look in new museum time, is exploring a way to perform its duties as a culture and history role, and to benefit people as much as possible, and to provide the notable collections, the brilliant exhibitions and the vital information and useful knowledge. The management of the exhibitions is going forward and getting improved with the shift of the weather of the museums.
Figure 73 Homepage of online exhibition
Source YUNNAN PROVINCIAL MUSEUM
Figure 74 Online exhibition
Source YUNNAN PROVINCIAL MUSEUM
4.2. The management of social media of Yunnan Provincial Museum 69
It is inevitably that social media takes the burden of communication and interaction among people, of releasing news and information from official to individuals, and plays a core role throughout the world in the digital age. Currently, social media could say a lifestyle, where it appears everywhere in people’s life and work. Moreover, it also is an effective way to do the interpretation. In terms of visitors aspect, whomever they are, they can posting their selfies and photos of museums on Facebook or Weibo and Wechat, and write small essays and comments at anytime anywhere on the social media, which can make more or less influence to others, and it also is an ideal platform for visitors to communicate and interact with each other even strangers, where they can share their experience, ideas, stories and feelings with the people who they even might not know but who can give the resonances or discussion to each other. Visitors can create their own interpretations with their previous stories and experiences. With regard to the museums, it is easier and more convenient to do more activities and interaction with visitors can via social media platforms, for it is quicker and more effective to spread the information and news. In addition, it is also easy to do the visitors management, which can reply the feedback and comments from visitors instantly, and to account the numbers of visitors directly. The official accounts of Weibo and Wechat of Yunnan Provincial Museum win the follwers 137,624 and 30,000 respectively. The number of views in Weibo normally reaches around 1,000-5,000 each essay, for the top and hit topics around 50,000, and in Wechat normally catches around 1,000 for each essay but around 5,000 for the top and hit topics. In comparison these two platforms, Weibo takes the advantage of massive followers to read the numerous and diverse information covering almost every aspect related to people and nation. From political events to entertainment news, from the celebrities to the ordinary people, from the government to the folk, almost everything and everyone can hardly miss its name on Weibo, which is a more public and informative social platform in China, and provides overwhelming information to public. While Wechat, as a mutually application for people to connect with each other, it is a more private platform than Weibo which requires the verification to add an account, and where individuals share their moments with their close and acquaintances rather than strangers, and where the major function is to communicate by sending messages 70
and text. Therefore, compared with plentiful readers and viewers on Weibo, the account of Wechat of Yunnan Provincial Museum welcomed by fewer followers, but visitors and followers on Wechat are more actively to get interaction with the museum than on Weibo. Yunnan Provincial Museum makes full use of these two platforms, in different content to provide as much complete services as possible for visitors, and to update their information and news, and to manage visitors and to arrange activities, where the museum creates much more space and opportunities for public to be involved in the museum. The museum will update news and information on Wechat notification almost every week normally two or three times with the content of three main aspects, the first one is the activities for children appointment every week, the second one is the announcements of the coming exhibitions and reviews of the last exhibition, and the third one is the interaction part with public, such as Q&A about the exhibitions and collections being displayed in Yunnan Provincial Museum, and gifts and presents during the Spring Festival and other Festivals that Museum prepare for visitors via Wechat who have the chance to get the gifts after reading the update notification and leave comments, and a series of popularization of science knowledge, and Chinese traditional culture or the common senses of archaeology and relics, and other activities and voluntary positions opening information, etc. In the past International Museum Day in 2018, Yunnan Provincial Museum designed a couple of activities via Wechat and Weibo or other media applications for visitors, the most welcomed is the “AR treasure hunting”, which requires visitors according to the clue to find articles and to collect all of them by scanning these images, once done, visitors could go to the counter to get a prize. These articles scattered in different areas where visitors through this activity not only visit the exhibitions, but also participate in the exhibitions and get the “treasure” in the end of visit. Meanwhile, through these social media, the museum also encourages visitors to take part in various online activities, seeing in the voting for the key highlights of the collections of Yunnan Provincial Museum, and the most favorite and popular articles from which the museum can know the idea of visitors and hear the voice of public to adjust the management and other work. And in the opening ceremony of the exhibition Sissy and Hungary, 71
invitations also were distributed through Wechat by selecting the top 30 readers whose comments of the article got the most likes by other readers, which in some content drove people to spread this information, and lured more people to pay attention to this event and to be actively in the activity. In addition, Yunnan Provincial Museum runs an account in The Himalayan, a Chinese audio platform which according to the survey data is followed by four hundred and fifty million users at the beginning of 2018, covering diverse aspects for audiences to study and to entertain, and classifying detailedly from children to adults, from history to commerce, from professional field to leisure information. On this platform, Yunnan Provincial currently manages three albums of the account. “Listen the voice of history” is one of them, which tells the history and the culture of Yunnan, coupled with the knowledge of exhibitions. The other one is “The Voluntary Readers”, a column by reading letters that the veterans who ever joined in the War of Resistance Against Japan, wrote and left for their families, friends and fellows to commemorate their devotion and sacrifice for this land. And the last one is “The Voice of Museum”—Key Highlights of Collections of Yunnan Provincial Museum, to tell the story of the treasure collections in Yunnan Provincial Museum. This platform has only worked for a couple of months, which now wins quite few audiences compared with Weibo and Wechat. Besides, there is also a radio channel to play these albums for public who can listen on the way to commutes. Unprecedented changes with respect to the use of information resources in museums have transformed the experience of visiting a museum, requiring adaptations for museum professionals and museum visitors, and resulting in new information needs and information policies. 48 These changes have affected how all users—museum professionals and visitors—interact with digital museum resources in their everyday lives, either when visiting museums in person, or when using museum resources
48 Besser Howard, “The transformation of the museum and the way it’s perceived.” In The wired museum:
Emerging technology and changing paradigms, ed Katherine Jones-Garmil, Washington, D.C.: American
Association of Museums, 1997, pp.153-170. 72
online.49 The increasing number of social media users brings the shift of the management of museum from the offline to online, and the way visitors participating in the museum experience.
5. Management of visitors’ service The shift of museums nowadays also goes to the service aspect, where the service of a museum in some content influences the experience of visitors and the possibility of revisits, and where the service of a museum reflects the goals and the idea of the managers and the curator, and where it is an interpretation of the museum. The better and more complete services a museum provides to public, the better experiences of the museum visitors will acquire. Museums without visitors would be like lifeless, empty halls with no purpose. This should remind us that the key role for museums is always to serve its visitors. To do this effectively and efficiently we have to understand the motivation and needs of different audience segments and create an atmosphere that offers a range of experiences. It is all about pulling down barriers and allowing visitor involvement and engagement, and at the same time conserving and securing the collection for future generations.50 At the time when the new Yunnan Provincial Museum was ready to welcome public in 2015, the number of visitors that year reached around 573,000, which saw the highest numbers per day in 22,000. Those visitors includes the national and provincial government officials and leaders and ambassadors in total 100 persons, foreign visitors more than 300 persons, and 30,000 students, coupled with no less than 400 tourist groups. In addition, at least 200 activities, higher than 30 lectures and around 80 videos playing were provided for visitors from different background and experience. These fruit are based on a systematic service of management and arrangement, which creates the Yunnan Provincial Museum as a distinctive brand in public culture field. Especially the museum focuses the services on the teenagers, the elders and the disabled groups.51
49 Klaus Müller, Museums and Virtuality, Curator, 45 (1), 2002, pp.21-33. 50 Christian Waltl, Museums for visitors: Audience development - A crucial role for successful museum management strategies, Intercom Conference Paper, 2006, p.1. Available on the internet: http://intercom.museum/documents/1-4Waltl.pdf. 51 Yunnan Provincial Museum, 《2015 年鉴》(THE ANNUAL OF YUNNAN MUSEUM), Yunnan Publish and 73
--Information service. Information service is one of the basic functions for a museum to provide public and visitors exhibitions information, guide information, and also academic information, etc. As other most museums, Yunnan Provincial Museum sets the visitor service counter and information counter at the first floor in the hall (Figure 75-76), where visitors can deposit their stuff, get the brochures of the exhibitions, consult information from the staff and ask for the audio guides on the counters. And there are signboards on each floor for visitors to check the way and direction, and also staff in each exhibition hall to provide help for visitors. Besides, visitors can enjoy the huge LED digital screen standing at the exit of the museum on the first floor (Figure 77), which displays images of articles of every exhibition for public, so that visitors can touch the screen and click the image which they are interested in to check the information of the articles presented on the screen, what’s more, visitors can click the “like” for the articles if they are fond of them. The digital screen presents almost images of collections and articles in every exhibition, where visitors can have the chance to get close to the articles and “touch” them, and which will make the visit experience impressive and more active with the public engaged in.
Figure 75Information desk and visitors’ service
Source LIU SHENGYU
Yunnan Press, 2015, p.23. (transl. by the author). 74
Figure 76 Information desk and visitors’ service
Source LIU SHENGYU
Figure 77 Digital display system
Source LIU SHENGYU Furthermore, visitors can check the information of Yunnan Provincial Museum online through the official website and Weibo and Wechat social platforms, where the information will be updated simultaneously as the offline. Through the Weichat and Weibo, visitors and audiences can express their ideas and leave their questions or comments for the museum on the backstage, and will get the feedback and reply soon for the museum staff. --Voluntary service. For a non-profit institution, in particular for the one which is free admission, museums bear the responsibility to conserve the heritage and to spread the culture heritage to the wider public. Under such circumstance, volunteer in the museum progress plays not the vital but an inevitable role, who share the responsibility with the museum staff and put as much as the efforts to the museum events. 75
Currently, the number of volunteers in Yunnan Provincial Museum in total reaches around 300 covering almost every field in the museum. Those volunteers are filled with the museum where visitors can easily see the group of people wearing the red vests, the uniform of volunteer, and about 100 of them work as interpreters doing interpretation for visitors (Figure 78-80). These interpreters almost are retired groups and university students, who are required qualified training before they go to interpretation. And there is a young group of interpreters work for children, who are pupils at the age of 9-12. These voluntary groups mainly serve for the local or domestic visitors. Visitors can freely join in the tour groups guided by voluntary interpreters every day two times. Normally it takes around one and half hours for a tour group visiting a floor, which is totally three hours to finish the whole temporary exhibitions. Also, visitors can enjoy themselves without any interruption, or apply an audio guide to start their visit.
Figure 78 Volunteers’ activities
Source YUNNAN PROVINCIAL MUSEUM
76
Figure 79 Volunteers’ activities and interpretation
Source YUNNAN PROVINCIAL MUSEUM
Figure 80 Children group volunteers class
Source YUNNAN PROVINCIAL MUSEUM The voluntary services are not only in the museum, but go to the fieldwork either. People can see the red uniform appearing in schools of cities and counties in Yunnan Province, where in 2015, the voluntary groups spread the knowledge of intangible cultural heritage to the younger generation, and where abundant activities related to the local culture, for instance dyeing teaching and learning of Bai group, speeches of 77
intangible cultural heritage, paper-cuts, mask drawing, paper money making for worship, Dongba writing practice, the picto-ideographic writing used by the Naxi ethnic group and still using nowadays, and calligraphy practice, etc. were arranged for the students, which made ten primary schools and more than 36,000 pupils got benefit from the activities.52 In addition, at the same year, for commemorating the 70th victory of War of Resistance Against Japan in the west of Yunnan, the volunteers went to the Nanzhao Museum in Dali area to do the culture communication and also to spread the intangible cultural heritage knowledge, coupled with diverse activities. Meanwhile, the voluntary group went to local schools in Dali to give speeches to popularize the intangible cultural heritage, which made full use of the educational function of museum, and made the museum gone to class.53 --Professional service. In order to meet the diverse demands of visitors from home and abroad with different background, Yunnan Provincial Museum provides a professional group for servicing for public. As it referred above, visitors can enjoy the service of voluntary tour groups, and they can also make an appointment with private and professional interpreters charged by the time via the official website or on the phone call to visit the exhibitions (Figure 81).
Figure 81 Professional interpreter
Source YUNNAN PROVINCIAL MUSEUM
52 Ivi, p.43. 53 Ivi, p.45. 78
The museum trains a professional group for visitors who can provide multilingual interpretations for audiences coming from different countries and backgrounds. These professional interpreters are trained in etiquette, contents and skills of interpretations to meet the different demands of visitors, who have received diplomats from ASEAN countries, law enforcement officials of Vietnam, Myanmar and Thailand, and consuls of Singapore in Guangzhou, which promotes the cooperation and understanding in culture communication among the ASEAN countries and China, and official celebrities and curator of National Museum of Korean from Korean, and the philanthropist Kenneth·E·Behring and managers from Maclean Collection in America had visits in Yunnan Provincial Museum. Moreover, this group also hosted the colleagues from other museums and provinces to learn each other and to advance the further cooperation and communication. Meanwhile, this professional group also provides service for the government officials in China. Through this professional interpretation for aimed groups, Yunnan Provincial Museum presents a professional and complete knowledge in culture and history of Yunnan to the foreign and official people. What’s more, besides the professional interpretation for visitors, Yunnan Provincial invites regularly professional scholars, curators of other museums, professors of universities and colleges, archaeologists to give lectures to public, which reaches different aspects generally divided into the following parts: the lectures of collections, the lecture of Chinese traditional culture and customs, coupled with the history of revolution, the lectures of the management of the museum in the new time, the lecture of the future planning with the launching of the new policy “The Belt and Road Initiative”, and the lecture of Puer Tea, a renowned local tea of Yunnan. These lectures provides visitors and public a platform to exposure to wider culture and history knowledge, and museum staff multiple angles and perspectives to understand the trend, the changing role, and the function of museum, in order to be prepared for the coming future. --Leisure service. The changing weather of museums over the decades has brought the new roles for museums worldwide, where “museum” is given various definitions and functions rather than a learning institution, coupled with currently the rising awareness of people to conserve their heritage in order to seek their identities and root from the 79
heritage and to carry them forward to the further generations, and the curiosity of people to know the history. Museum as a medium between people and their ancestors bridges a bridge connecting the past and the present and the future, where people nowadays see museum as not only a “knowledge space” and culture institution, but a multi-functional place to relax and to spend their leisure time. Therefore, the leisure service of a museum is getting more and more influential in the museums management and events. It, to some content, is a meeting place for friends and families spending leisure time, a coffee bar for visitors, and even a paradise for children. A good leisure service is also a decisive factor for visitors having an impressive experience in museum, and even revisiting the museum. When it goes to Yunnan Provincial Museum, the leisure service is well arranged for visitors. --Resting area. The museum sets a plenty of benches (Figure 82-83) on every floor for visitors to rest and to relax close to the open balcony inside, which are full of various flora and other sceneries. Visitors can sit on the benches after the visit or during the intermission, and appreciate the flora sceneries through the French windows, and take a deep breath to feel the smell of the nature, and to sense the peaceful and tranquil moment. Also, visitors can go outside of the museum, to get some fresh air and to loose up themselves by walking around the museum in the paths surrounded by the tall and dense green trees and colorful flowers, listening the birds singing above head and the sound of the water running in the pond, or finding a chair to have a rest. Yunnan Provincial Museum tries as possible as to create a natural and peaceful atmosphere and feeling for visitors both from the exterior planning and interior design to provide visitors a comfortable leisure environment.
Figure 82 Resting area 80
Source LIU SHENGYU
Figure 83 Resting area
Source LIU SHENGYU
--Coffee Shop. The soil of Yunnan is fit for the coffee growing, where the land has breeds not a few coffee brands and species in Yunnan. The coffees shop nested on the first floor, named ChuCola Coffee providing sandwiches, coffee and other beverages and snacks for visitors. The ChuCola coffee is not introduced in random into museum, but a selected brand with its legend story. ChuCola is the name of a village in Binchuan county, Dali Bai Autonomous Prefecture, Yunnan Province, where the oldest coffee tree in China has grown for over a hundred years. Back to the Qing Dynasty, the year of the eighteenth of Guangxu, 1892, the French Catholic missionary Tian De La****** who is called as the father of Coffee in China, came to Binchuan to preach the Catholic. At the time he arrived at that area, he also brought the first coffee seed to China in Dali region. He planted the first coffee tree Arabica in Binchuan land, and introduced the habit of coffee drinking into local and taught residences how to make money from coffee. From the day the word “coffee” went to local daily life, coffee plantation and coffee drinking became popular and widely welcomed in indigenous people’s life. The habit of coffee drinking and coffee plantation have influenced Binchuan people for more than one century, where nowadays, local people still keep the habit and plant the coffee trees, and a record shows that there are 1,134 the oldest coffee trees, and 24 of them have no less than a hundred years history in ChuCola village. Recently, the 81
ChuCola Coffee is preparing for the nomination of the Chinese heritage.54 Therefore, the ChuCola coffee with its legend is not only a simple drinking for people, but rather a history, a story and a heritage of Yunnan Province, which witnesses the history of coffee in Yunnan and even China, and cultivates the coffee culture and the heritage. Yunnan Provincial Museum selects this ChuCola coffee for visitors, to provide people local and authentic coffee drinking, and more important to spread the history and culture and the heritage of Yunnan to wider public. Visitors can order a cup of coffee and find a seat in the shop (Figure 84-85), watching the video clips introducing the history of ChuCola coffee, and enjoying the slow time with the legend story, to taste the flavor of history, to smell the fragrance of time, to sense the power of culture, and to feel the heritage. The coffee beans are available for public to take home. In addition, visitors can enjoy the scenery surrounding the coffee shop, where through the French windows people can catch the view of open balcony as well, and immerse themselves in the sunshine and the fresh air from the open balcony.
Figure 84 ChuCola coffee shop
Source LIU SHENGYU
54 Ye Zhisheng, 你尝过百年古树种的咖啡吗？(Ni Chang Guo Bai Nian Gu Shu Zhong Chu De Ka Fei Ma?), Yunnan Provincial Museum official Wechat account, Sep, 2017. 82
Figure 85 ChuCola coffee shop
Source WAN XUEJUN
--Children activity area. The young generation in particular the children who go to museums in almost cases with their parents or teachers usually on the weekends, and in some content not for the exhibitions but for the activities that they can engage in the amused activities and acquire some experience. There is a truth that activities and amusement facilities are more attractive than exhibitions in the museum for the young group, which poses a question to the museum: how to lure the young audiences and spread the culture heritage to them? The answer is quite simple: activities. Yunnan Provincial Museum sets two areas for children to engage in activities. The first one is on the second floor, the “Children Experience Zone”(Figure 86), supplied with some facilities and tools for children use during the activities. Big activities for children are held in this area often on the weekends or Festivals. The second one is on the first floor. Inside the new cultural creativity experience open store, there is a small area designed for children to play games and to draw pictures by touching the images of kinds of fishes and other organisms on the big screen and drawing the images of the fishes then projecting on the screen for public. This area charges 20 CNY(about 3 US dollar) entrance fee for each child, who averagely will spend thirty minutes there with other children. The more children join in, the longer time they will spend. You will hardly miss the laugh and the fun when walk by this area. 83
Figure 86 Children Experience Zone
Source LIU SHENGYU
In some point, the children activity service share the pressure to look after children with parents and adults, and provides a place to spend weekend for the families arising children, which helps them win some spare time to visit the museum and relax. --Souvenir service. Souvenirs for the non-profit culture institutions, in the marketing point, brings more or less the profits to the museum. For the museums depending on the government supports, although souvenirs and other related products are not the major source of capital, if it done well, the successful souvenirs and attractive related products will make considerable profits to the museum as well. In addition, in the cultural dimension, the souvenirs and products can be created and designed as a cultural brand of the museum through which the museum can make the intangible culture and heritage and untouchable collections available for public to consume, so that visitors can “take the museum home” rather than “I have visited this museum”, and they can leave something on their mind and memory. Moreover, successful souvenirs and related products of a museum will help visitors to create different and better visit experience, for they can get “close” to the history, the exquisite articles or collections and even afford which they are fond of, instead of only seeing from the exhibition hall, and for they can create their own version of interpretations with their different feelings about the souvenirs. Furthermore, these souvenirs and products can be used in the daily life, which to some content will remind the visitors the memory and the experience they had 84
in the museum, and will make visitors feel a sense of closeness with the museum. Moreover, the souvenir as it referred above is a brand and publicity for the museum outside the museum. The souvenir shop of Yunnan Provincial Museum after redesigned and updated recently reopens as the cultural creativity experience store (Figure 87-90), moved from the inside room to the open area in the center on the first floor facing to the exit. Compared the previous souvenirs store, the new shop provides visitors more abundant products reaching at 200 types, with almost designed with the Yunnan local cultural and exhibitions elements and other typical elements of China, including one of the most popular scotches printed in the buzzword in China and the images of the exhibitions and history and culture of Yunnan among younger groups, and the pokers of which the design is also one of the most popular for the visitors, the cup pads printed in the auspicious animals and images and umbrellas printed in the lucky and blessed Chinese words, the porcelain products painted with the images of the historical celebrities, and the peacock shaped bookmarks with local elements are bestsellers for the foreign or other provincial visitors, and the dinosaurs’ models and other toys most best-seller for etc., and is a more attractive shopping store than the previous one, for its location, layout and design are natural but inevitable for visitors to notice, and arise the interests of people to have a look rather than giving visitors a sense of going to a souvenir shop. Over the recent past, the group of the candidates for an entrance examination are the frequent products consumers of the museum, who had and will have the entrance examinations to go to colleges and high schools. The souvenir store launches the special products for those students for instances rulers, fans and other school supplies of which the design are cheering them on.
85
Figure 87 Cultural creativity store
Source LIU SHENGYU
Figure 88 Cultural creativity store
Source LIU SHENGYU
Figure 89 Products of cultural creativity store
Source LIU SHENGYU
Figure 90 Products of cultural creativity store 86
Source LIU SHENGYU Besides the new cultural creativity shop, the museum sets automatic postbox shaped souvenir machines on the second floor, where visitors can deposit money into the machine to choose the images what they like to make a customized post and post it from the machine to their friends (Figure 91). The images on the post are also the collections and articles that the museum displays for public.
Figure 91 Automatic postcard machine
Source LIU SHENGYU Souvenirs with the added values of culture, history and customization, are not only simple products, but rather the embodiments of the culture and the heritage. The management of visitors for a museum is the basic function of the museum in the recent time, where the museum needs its audiences and visitors, the curator serves for the public not him/herself. The dynamic and changing situation and environment in culture heritage field will bring more shifts to museum in the future, however, whatever the changes will be, the visitors are always the target that the museum serves for.
6. The management of activities and the community engagement. Activities is a good way to actively and effectively make the community involved in the museum events and to arise their resonances. Community engagement in the cultural tourism and cultural field especially in these decades is the influential factor that if the culture heritage can be sustainable in a long term and future. Why do some museums win our hearts and others don't? What's the 87
criterion that puts one museum on a cultural consumer's social radar screen while another remains invisible? What is it that makes a cultural consumer recommend a museum to their friends? What draws a visitor back again and again to a certain museum—while avoiding others? What creates that elusive trust relationship called social capital? What motivates some families to volunteer time and hard-earned dollars to one museum and not another? Why would a family chose one museum over another when deciding to donate precious heirlooms? What transforms cultural consumer indifference into long term commitment? Emotional value, nurtured through trust relationships, influences the museum's ability to connect and build community engagement.55 The definition of community from ICOMO is: A community is a group of people living collectively or forming an association, sharing a number of things in common (language, religion, customs) without necessarily gathering around institutional structures.56 The individuals of a community share the same cultural heritage and history background with each other and are nurtured with the same ideology, who are the guardians of their treasures and more important, the inheritors of their heritage. They are even in the smallest part the heritage makers, and the “living” museum and culture. Let’s imagine a picture: what if the museums will be without the engagement of the local community? We probably will see kinds of brilliant and excellent museum architectures and tremendous exquisite collections from the whole world, but we probably will feel the indifferent and the “same” museums everywhere, for we will not feel the distinct and vibrant of the culture, the power and the life of the heritage and the histories beyond the museums. Here comes the situation to the museums: as a cultural institution taking the responsibility of spreading culture of a city and a country, how the museum express the local and national heritage and culture effectively to foreigners and out comers, how the museum be more attractive for visitors and local people, and how the museum create impressive experience for visitors. The answer is obvious, the local community. Very clearly, cities have become more diverse and heterogeneous. While recent decades have witnessed an increase in the complexity and drivers of migration and displacement,
55 Sherene SUCHY, Museum management: Emotional value and community engagement, Intercom Conference Paper, 2006, p.2. 56 André and François, Key Concepts of Museology, pp.56-57. 88
one constant element is that migrants, both internal and international, are moving towards cities and urban areas.57 Culture is key to what makes cities attractive, creative and sustainable. History shows that culture is at the heart of urban development, evidenced through cultural landmarks, heritage and traditions. Without culture, cities as vibrant life-spaces do not exist; they are merely concrete and steel constructions, prone to social degradation and fracture. It is culture that makes the difference. It is culture that defines the city as what the ancient Romans called the civitas, a coherent social complex, the collective body of all citizens.58 So are the museums, without the community engagement, museums are not vibrant and are merely architectures. The community is the cultural practitioner and the culture spreader of a place, a city and a country, and the community infuses the vigor to a city, and differentiates the city from others. As a vital culture communication platform between China and Southeast Asia and other neighbors, Yunnan Provincial Museum organizes and arranges a series of activities for the local communities. For instance, recently, the museum organizes a series themed activities of the Dian veterans during the War of Resistance Against Japan, which listens the voice of the local veteran group. One of the activities is the exhibitions, where the museum collects numerous letters and articles that the armies wrote to their homes and friends and used during the war, and arranges an exhibition displaying for public. It makes visitors felt the determinations, warm blood, and patriotism through the lines and words of these veterans, and therefore arose the understanding of this group, the awe and respect to them, more important to pay more attentions to these heroes, and other related a couple of exhibitions telling the history and that period also successively are arranged for the veterans. These themed exhibitions are welcomed by the veterans and their families among local people, who through these exhibitions see the values of themselves and their elder generations, and who are not be forgot by the public. Moreover, the museum organizes a “Volunteer Readers” activity both playing on Wechat official accounts and Himalaya platforms, which seeks volunteers from the local people, and selects some of
57 UNESCO, Culture urban sustainable, 2016, p.22. 58 Ibid, p.17. 89
them to read these letters. This activity attracts plenty of local applicants from different background and positions, which through this activity deepens their understanding of the history and the old group, and learn more information that will not appear in the historic or cultural books, and more important let this group and their history exposure to the wider public. In addition, the museum organized an outdoor activity two in 2015, “ back to the Burma road ”, a red road trip ******* starting from Kunming city to Wanting county, a border prefecture in the west of Yunnan Province. The trip brings new and impressive experience for participants by visiting the cultural landscapes and museums along the red road trip, and deepens their feeling for the people guarding this land and understanding of the painstaking effort and devotion of the veterans and the heroes made for this land and the country. Besides a series of activities and exhibitions for the significant history events, the museum designs a travelling display, based on the theme of the “ Old Kunming ”, presenting the collected old pictures of Kunming took by local people, which creates an atmosphere of nostalgic and takes the senior group of local residents back to the old time and recalls their memories of the past time, and arises their resonances, and also carries these cherish memories and culture forward to the younger generation to let them feel the feelings and understand the changes of the time, so that both senior and junior groups will rise the awareness of valuing their culture and their current life. Meanwhile, the museum organizes parent-child activities that the parents played in their childhood, such as hopscotch, cat’s cradle, and rubber band skipping which were quite popular but are missing among the younger generations. These games provides children a chance to experience their parents childhood, and promote the mutual feelings between children and their parents. In Yunnan Provincial Museum, you will hardly ever miss any activity. Whatever the Festival it is, and whenever the exhibition opening ceremony is, the museum will organize and arrange abundant activities for visitors and local community. For instance, on the first day of The Guqin Exhibition, the museum hosted a Guqin party in the museum, where there were 30 volunteers played Guqin, presenting a visual and an audio feast for visitors, and there were tea, candies and refreshments providing for public to enjoy themselves. Listening to the traditional music, appreciating the Guqin 90
collections and drinking a cup of tea with a couple of friends, this party brought visitors go back to the ancient time to experience the life and the leisure time of the ancient people. Almost in every opening ceremony of exhibition, Yunnan Provincial Museum will hold a party for visitors to lure their interests for the exhibition. In all activities that Yunnan Provincial Museum organizes for public, the focus is on the younger generation and parent-child group, which lures wide local community and families join in the museum events, and makes them benefited from these programs. Activities is a bridge connecting the museum and local community through which both of them can get mutually benefits from each other. For the local community, they, on the surface in the museum, play the role of visitors, who can acquire knowledge and information from the museum and get better understanding of the culture and history, and more deeply, the role of participants of the story tellers and culture spreaders, whose value can be valued by engaged in the diverse museum events. With regard to the museum aspect, it provides local community a platform to participant in the culture events and related activities, and makes their emotional value fulfilled and satisfied by arising their resonances and awareness in kinds of activities, and in return, the fulfillment and satisfaction will be the inner fuel to drive local community more actively participating in the museum events and in the conservation and spread of culture heritage, which is at present the way to make the museum management and running sustainable.
7. The management of education. 7.1. The significance of education in museum. The educational role of museum also gets evolved and developed into the current situation. Nowadays, as a cultural institution, to educate masses is one of the core missions for museums. Public more or less could learn and acquire something from the museum. As George E. Hein mentioned in his book: Visitors make meaning in the museum, they learn by constructing their own understandings. The issue for museums, if they recognize this principle, is to determine what meanings visitors do make from their experience, and then to shape the experience to the extent possible by the manipulation of the environment. Every museum building will send a message (or 91
multiple messages); every exhibition will evoke feelings, memories, and images; every encounter with an object brings about a reflection (even if it is only incomprehension and frustration); every social interaction reinforces connections, stimulates new ones, or triggers personal anxieties. We know the range of visitor reactions to their museum experience is tremendous; we know that powerful, enriching, even life-changing moments are possible in museums. Visitors do learn in the museum. What the cumulative result of these experiences will be is up to future exhibition designers and museum educators working together and with their audience.59 Museum in a multi- scopes provides visitors different senses experience. Education as a crucial museum function has been recognized as long as there have been public museums. The public museum as we know it—the display of objects for the edification and entertainment of the public—is a product of the eighteenth century, with a major expansion of museums into significant public institutions occurring in the nineteenth century. Museums developed approximately parallel with the advent of the nation-state in response to recognition that the welfare of citizens was the responsibility of government. Public museums grew as knowledge spread beyond a very limited class.60 The educational role of museums is as old as the modern museum, but only since World War II has it matured into an acknowledged profession. Today, along with a growing literature in the field, there are graduate degree programs in museum education, professional positions for museum educators, large, standing committees for educators within major professional museum organizations (international, national, and regional), and journals dedicated to museum education.61 According to the International Council of Museums (ICOM n.d.): “A museum is a non- profit making, permanent institution in the service of society and of its development, and open to the public, which acquires, conserves, researches, communicates and exhibits, for purposes of study, education and enjoyment, material evidence of people and their environment.” This statement, on the current ICOM website (2005), illustrates the growing recognition of the significance of education. In the 1946 definition, from
59 George, Learning in the museum, p.179. 60 Ivi, p.3. 61 Ivi, p.340. 92
which this one evolved, education is not mentioned.62 Over the last twenty years, museum professionals have become increasingly aware of the educational role of museums and have begun to re-evaluate the relationship between museums and their visitors. Museum visits tend to be brief, infrequent events requiring less time and effort than most other educational activities.63 For the social group, museum can widen their knowledge scope and fertilize their aesthetic appreciation, for the younger generation group, museum provides them a practical and vivid learning environment and educates them not in a examination and competence purpose but in a life-long goal, for the academic group, museum is a field for research study and for the visitors, museum provides a place for leisure and culture tourism.
7.2. The management of younger generation education Museum for younger generation is the flexible, diverse and open class where is without accountability system—inspectors, tests, and standard curriculum, and the practical field filled with exploration and curiosity, making younger students learned in the fun. Younger generation education is the center mission of the Yunnan Provincial Museum, where the museum organizes and holds abundant programs and activities for this group. The past year witnessed the achievement and fruit in education work, seeing in the 436 programs and activities in total held by Yunnan Provincial Museum. Since the first day of the New Yunnan Provincial Museum opened, it sets up an Art Class to do normal education work on every weekend for the younger generation, ranging different age from children and teenager groups. There are four major theme activity parts for this class: the archaeology class, the red classic history, collections recognition and bookmark making, and our festivals. --The archaeology class. In this class, the youngsters first visit the museum exhibitions led by volunteer to appreciate the brilliant and exquisite collections and masterpieces, then join in the speech given by the professional lectures in museology major to know “what is archaeology”, “what is the engagement in the archaeological studies”, the
62 Ibid. 63 Ivi, p.344. 93
difference of the them, and learn other information of archaeology, etc. The final part is to do the archaeological engagement and excavation in the modeling the archaeology situation and environment. Children and teenagers can experience the process of archaeology, and instead of learning in the books, can acquire the very practical knowledge and first hand experience through joining in the activity. It is a great platform for the younger generation to expose to the archaeology field, and a great chance to cultivate their awareness of protecting heritage and culture.64 --The red classic history. This class focuses on the red culture, to tell the significant events and heroes during that time to the younger generation, and to teach them to make the symbolic stuff such as a hat, a badge of that time, in order to make the younger generation had a deep and profound understanding of that period, and to arise their patriotism and passion to the land and the nation (Figure 92-93).65
Figure 92 Red classic history
Source YUNNAN PROVINCIAL MUSEUM
64 Ye Zhisheng, 2017 年云博教育活动精彩锦集(2017 Nian Yun Bo Jiao Yu Huo Dong Jing Cai Jing Ji), Yunnan Provincial Museum, 2017. (transl. by the author) 65 Ibid. 94
Figure 93 Red classic history
Source YUNNAN PROVINCIAL MUSEUM --Collections recognition and bookmark making. This part of the Art Class aims to cultivate the handmade ability of children and teenagers, and to teach them to recognize collections and articles. The activity mainly includes two parts: the first one is to visit the exhibition led by the staff and appreciate the collections and articles, and staff will interpret for them; the second part is to do the handmade bookmark. After finishing the visit, the staff will distribute some material and tools to children to let them make bookmarks as the shape of the collections and articles that they visited before.66 This activity not only improves the young students’ knowledge of collections and culture heritage, but practices their ability to do handwork, more important, makes them learned in practice and fun (Figure 94).
Figure 94 Art class
66 Ibid. 95
Source YUNNAN PROVINCIAL MUSEUM -- Our festivals. As it was mentioned before, on every Chinese traditional festival, the museum organizes various activities for the children, and parent-child group. This part centers on the culture spread and protection to the younger generation and the practice for them to do handcraft through which the children can acquire the achievement and fulfillment and the knowledge as well. For instance, on the Dragon Boat Festival, the museum arranges children to make the traditional Chinese rice-pudding, and to draw the pictures of their memories and imaginations of the dragon boat competition and the festival feast. Our festivals helps the younger generation to understand the meaning and significant of the traditional festivals and culture heritage (Figure 95), meanwhile to know their duty and responsibility to inherit and to protect these traditional culture. In addition, the Art Class based on the collections elements to create new series of courses, the Bronze series: The Ancient Weapons of Dian Kingdom, The Ancient Totems of Dian Kingdom, The Frog Shaped Copper Spear, and the Ancient Yunnan series: The Dinosaurs Fossil, The Ancient Ocean life etc.67 This new program explores a creative method to popularize the information and knowledge of collections and exhibitions for the younger generation, and tries to provide a vivid interpretation for the younger audiences.
Figure 95 Festival activity
Source YUNNAN PROVINCIAL MUSEUM -- Popular Science Class. Another program, the Popular Science Class set for the group
67 Ibid. 96
of children aging from 6 to 10 is welcomed on every Saturday morning. This program is organized by the voluntary group of Yunnan Provincial Museum, whose aim is to make their effort to the educational work for Yunnan Provincial Museum, and to fully play their speciality and strength to the museum events. Volunteers will lead the children to visit the exhibitions and to interpret for them, and to give their classes to tell them the common senses and other popular science (Figure 96-97).
Figure 96 Popular Science class for the students from village
YUNNAN PROVINCIAL MUSEUM
Figure 97 Science class for the students from village
YUNNAN PROVINCIAL MUSEUM Meanwhile, Yunnan Provincial reaches cooperation with neighbor colleges where the museum invites the art major lectures to give painting course to younger generation. This course focusing on the traditional Chinese painting, colored pencil painting, clay sculptures, and color sculpture, is long and systematic given two times every month, 97
and full free for all the participants. This course lures scores of children and parents.68 --Summer Camps. Summer camp is also a highlight in the younger generation education work in Yunnan Provincial Museum. In the past summer camps, the museum organized three camps for the children and teenagers, including Insects Story (Figure 98-99), Cross the Neolithic and The Primitive tribes, coupled with the training course for the younger interpreters.
Figure 98 Insects story summer camp
Source YUNNAN PROVINCIAL MUSEUM
Figure 99 Insects story summer camp
Source YUNNAN PROVINCIAL MUSEUM First, the training course was given by professional interpreters in Yunnan Provincial who took six days to teach the children in total 60 divided into two groups. The course according to the timeline of the exhibitions and history presented the younger interpreters a systematic learning progress, and also trained the children’s ability to
68 Ibid. 98
express, and the etiquette of being a qualified interpreter. Meanwhile, this course created a chance for children to learn the Dongba writing, to do paper-cut, and to make the pottery, and to appreciate other intangible heritage.69 Children through this course acquired the knowledge of the heritage collections and the history in a lively situation and vivid learning environment instead of the books and schools, and moreover, trained their abilities of expression and communication, which in a great content promoted their recognitions of the social and the world. Second, the Insects Story was a field activity. The children led by the insects expert to visit the insects “world”, to recognize kinds of insect species, and to train the children how to observe the insects, how to catch them in the wild, and then go to fieldwork and make specimen. The younger group could get close to the nature and know the nature by exposing to the nature and exploring the nature, rather than learning in the class and school. Then the Cross the Neolithic and The Primitive tribes camp encouraged children to be the “crazy” primitive who acquired the color sourcing from the nature and plants by hammering them, and then used them to color the potties. Children also learned to weave the fishnets, and what’s more, made the personal costumes based on the primitive style and model huts. This activity also created a platform and a chance for the children to go to the field and to practice and to experience with their knowledge, and at the same time to know the light of the wisdom of their ancestors and their cultures. Educational program and activity also ranges to the other culture field. During the temporary exhibition such as The Eternal City: Splendour of Ancient Rome, the educational office of Yunnan Provincial Museum organized a series of Roman Holiday activities and the essay competition themed on “The Roma in my eyes” which attracted more than 3,000 participants from 16 schools and institutions. And also during the Exhibition Of The Rare Masks From Central Africa, the educational office designed an environmental protection themed “Africa SHOW”, centering on the animals living in the African plains, which invited parents and children to join together, and played over 100 times during the exhibition period.70
69 Ibid. 70 Ibid. 99
--Other activity and program. The younger generation education program and activity does not miss the remote poor villages and the home-parked children and disabled group. The care and love of educational office in Yunnan Provincial Museum went to the remote village, where home-parked children were invited to visit the museum and join in kinds of activities, and on the Children’s Day, the museum celebrated the festival for disabled group of Children from the neighbor special school. These special groups of children acquired the same opportunities as other children to engage in the museum events and to enjoy and to learn in the fun.71 Furthermore, with regard to the quite poor and remote area, the professional interpreters and staff of educational office in the museum made a series of vivid and concise stories of collections and articles recorded to the audio, and sent it to these the isolated mountains and villages for the local school, which was influential to the local children and students who had the opportunity to expose to the wide world and diverse culture, and to broaden their horizon and cultivate their awareness of culture heritage.72 This program will go to more and more places in the coming future in Yunnan area to spread the culture heritage of Yunnan and China to cover wider younger generation. Over the past decades, it has been the core mission of Yunnan Provincial Museum to put the public education into the highlighted place, in particular to the younger generation, which indeed gets fruits and positive feedbacks from the society and community.
8. The management of cultural creativity. 8.1. The meaning of cultural creativity. Creativity is a powerful catch phrase. In Western societies it epitomizes success, the modern, trends for novelty and excitement. Culture is the general expression of humanity, the expression of its creativity. Culture is linked to meaning, knowledge, talents, industries, civilisation and values. It looks as though the early 21st Century will turn out to be an era focused on supporting sustainable development. Creativity and ingenuity will be the keys to addressing the challenges.73
71 Ibid. 72 Ibid. 73 KEA European Affairs, THE IMPACT OF CULTURE ON CREATIVITY, A Study prepared for the European 100
8.2 The cultural creativity in Yunnan Provincial Museum. In the dynamic and changing weather of the culture field, how should we highlight our culture in such diverse and heterogeneous world? How should we make our culture sustainable? And how should we make our culture had more added value? Creativity can address these questions, which indeed infuses the fresh blood into the culture, and drives the culture expression in the broad and multiple ways. In China, cultural creativity is valued from up to bottom. In 2016, a series of policies and regulations were put in place to encourage the development of museum creativity industry. With national policy support and close social attention, the art and design of museum transforms from “cute” spin-offs to IP in the field of cultural relics and museum. Exhibition is a key platform for the communication between museums and audience and there are new curatorial models. Museums are shedding their elite image to get closer to people. In March 2016, The Guiding Opinion on Further Strengthening the Work of Cultural Relics issued by the State Council clearly requires “the development of creative industry in the field of cultural relics and museums”. In May, the State Council office issued Several Opinions on the Development of Cultural and Creative Products in Cultural Relic Institutions to the Ministry of Culture, the National Development and Reform Commission(NDRC), the Ministry of Finance, and the State Administration of Cultural Heritage. Supported by policies, 92 museums became the first batch of pilot institutions for development of cultural and creative products among museums in China.74 When it comes to Yunnan Provincial Museum, the cultural creativity focuses on the cultural products. In 2016, the second year of the new museum opened, Yunnan Provincial Museum, based on the purpose of “take the museum home”, together with other culture institutions and government body of Yunnan province, held the first cultural creativity design competition of Yunnan, which welcomed the participants throughout the world, ranging from the children to the senior, the professional designer to the amateur, to seek the best idea and design on the selected sixty collections and
Commission, 2009, p.3. 74 Zhang Zhenpeng, Museum Embraces the Era of Cultural Creativity, China & The World Cultural Exchange Jounarl, 03,2017, p.36. 101
articles from Yunnan Provincial Museum, and to present the culture and features of Yunnan province. These selected articles are the most representative pieces of collections and the key highlights of collections in the museum, almost reflecting the human and the nature. Without any limitation but the creativity, the functionality and utility, this competition evoked the creativity of the fanciers of culture and museum, and won the positive feedback from the community and the colleges from other province, and harvested not a few ideas for the creative cultural products.75 The first prize went to the design of incense plate with the element of the key highlight of collection Niu Hu case in Yunnan Provincial Museum (Figure 100-102).
Figure 100 The original Niu Hu Tong An case
Source YUNNAN PROVINCIAL MUSEUM
Figure 101 The first prize work
Source YUNNAN PROVINCIAL MUSEUM
The second prize was embraced by two designs, the Miao Hu Hu series work which was inspired by the lacquer of Yi group, and the timer and photo clips designed from
75 Dai Zongpin, et al., JOURNAL OF MUSEOLOGY, 4, 2016. 102
the Horn Shaped Chimes (Figure 102-105).
Figure 102 The lacquer of Yi group
Source YUNNAN PROVINCIAL MUSEUM
Figure 103 The second prize work “Miao Hu Hu”
Source YUNNAN PROVINCIAL MUSEUM
Figure 104 The Horn Shaped Chimes”
Source YUNNAN PROVINCIAL MUSEUM 103
Figure 105 The second prize work “timer and photo clips”
Source YUNNAN PROVINCIAL MUSEUM The third prize was won respectively by the “corkscrew”, the “flash disks” and the “atmosphere light”, which got the idea from the hunter image, the dagger, and the Lu sheng instrument (Figure 106-109).
Figure 106 The third prize work “flash disk”
Source YUNNAN PROVINCIAL MUSEUM
Figure 107 The Lu sheng instrument
Source YUNNAN PROVINCIAL MUSEUM 104
Figure 108 The third prize work “atmosphere light”
Source YUNNAN PROVINCIAL MUSEUM
Figure 109 The third prize work “corkscrew”
Source YUNNAN PROVINCIAL MUSEUM In these prizes, the design of Miao Hu Hu series won the most supports from visitors and audiences from home and abroad, whose idea was reformed into the mass products by Yunnan Provincial Museum, and which was the best-seller. Recently, the museum makes the souvenirs shop updated to the cultural creativity experience open store, and removed from the room to the outside in the hall, with a batches of new products launched to visitors and consumers. Most of these products are designed on the elements of Yunnan land, and others are infused into other Chinese elements, for the consumers are not only the local and Chinese, but come from oversea, therefore Yunnan Provincial Museum through diverse cultural creativity products presents both local and Chinese cultural to the visitors. At present, the museum has the cooperation with a design company in Kunming Jun Yu International which charges the design and creation of the souvenir products of Yunnan Provincial. 105
The most popular products among the visitors from other province is the customized peafowl shaped bookmark, an ideal souvenir for “taking the museum home” of the museum and Yunnan for which the peafowl is the typical and the representative animal in Yunnan with the auspicious meaning. And the series of dinosaur toys and spin-offs such as jigsaw puzzle and dinosaur models makes the most profits from children. Other products, for example the scotches catches a number of fans as well, due to the creative design on it, such as the combination of the Yoga postures and the weaving process of Miao group, the buzzword in China, and also the Dongba writing, the images of murals. These patterns and words are well designed to fully present the features of Yunnan, and they indeed draw the attentions of visitors. The series of “万害不侵”******* products including umbrella, eyeshade, luggage tag, and also scotches of which the idea sources from the opera masks of Zang group culture living in the northwest of Yunnan Province, is another popular souvenir among visitors. In addition, the creative poker designed with the elements of Chinese ancient dynasty, printed in the classic dialogue of the hit costume drama shows in China and the emperor’s and imperial concubines’ images are sold out immediately. Although the element of the poker is not Yunnan, it presents the Chinese ancient culture in an interesting and approachable way to the visitors. Meanwhile, the series of porcelain products also are combined with creative elements, for instance, the pattern of the ancient people on the porcelain is made cartoonish with exaggerated postures and face-looking. And as it was referred before, the creative series of stationeries designed for the candidates who are going to attend the entrance examinations are also welcomed by the students group. Besides the diverse attractive cultural creativity products, Yunnan Provincial Museum, together with other twenty-two museums of Yunnan Province scattered in different areas, establishes the Yunnan Museums IP Alliance, aiming to gather various cultural resources, in different levels, perspectives and dimensions, first to fuel the development of the museums’ cultural creativity products in Yunnan, second to build a systematic and organized museum cultural creativity industry, and third to create the brand of Yunnan cultural creativity products. With the trend of “Internet+” popularizing in China, in 2016, Internet giant that have cast greedy eyes on IP of traditional culture are finally making inroads into the field of 106
cultural relics and museums, which has become part of “Internet+”. Internet revolution increases the cultural creativity of museums. Traditional museums are sure to Go dot- com.76 The Yunnan Museums IP alliance is based on the “Internet+” thinking and policy to call for the mass innovation and crowdfunding for the museum cultural creativity industry. And the “Internet+” thinking and running model has been practiced by the alliance, which runs an online account on social network Wechat, and opens the online shopping via this platform. Motivated by relevant national policies, museums hope to share its outstanding cultural resources with the public through Internet and new technical platforms, inherit traditional culture in creative ways and inspire love for traditional culture in more young people.77 So is the Yunnan Provincial Museum, as the pilot among the Yunnan museums is trying to explore a new curatorial model and culture model in the dynamic and complicated situations. Cultural creativity as an industry indeed brings the benefits and capital to the museum in the marketing place, and it is also a new culture model in the future of museum to be sustainable, especially in the “Internet+” time.
76 Ibid. 77 Ibid. 95
CHAPTER III THE SWOT OF YUNNAN PROVINCIAL MUSEUM
The third chapter based on the last chapter is going to analyze the SWOT of Yunnan Provincial Museum focusing on the management dimension, which aims to propose the practical and sustainable plan for the museum in the future. 1. Strengths of Yunnan Provincial Museum As a comprehensive and national museum with the responsibility of culture spreading and communication, and masses education, Yunnan Provincial Museum in terms of the internal factors, there are several strengths as following. --Exhibition arrangement. Exhibition arrangement is without any doubt a noticeable strength of Yunnan Provincial Museum. In the comparison with other local museums, takes the main burden of culture communication with other countries and education to the masses and the community, and covers broader aspects and contents of exhibition and culture, which in a more macro scope presents a complete and multi-dimensional Yunnan to the public, reaching to not only the culture and history parts, but biology and geography levels. Therefore, visitors, instead of acquiring the partial knowledge of Yunnan land in other themed museums such as Yunnan Nationality Museum, can exposure to far more than minority and culture information in Yunnan Provincial Museum, and can learn the general but complete information of Yunnan land from one museum rather than several scattered museums. Besides, Yunnan Provincial Museum even compared with other museums within China, also is in the advantage place, actively introducing the oversea touring exhibitions and making cooperation with other foreign museums. For instance, the two recent temporary exhibitions Sissy and Hungary and the Un rêve français De l'École au Salon, les Beaux Art à Paris au XIXè Siècle, there were and are only very few museums in China introducing these two exhibitions, respectively four and two museums including Yunnan Provincial Museum, which provides visitors and exhibition fanciers the benefits to appreciate the excellent and classic exhibitions from all over the world, and to exposure to the heterogeneous cultures which almost are not available in other places 96
in China. In this point, Yunnan Provincial Museum in particular in the southwest of China is the center of the abroad exhibitions. With regard to local, Yunnan Provincial Museum as well actively listens the voice of masses to do the exhibition arrangements to try as possible as to meet the demands of the community. --Activity and younger generation education. One of the missions of Yunnan Provincial Museum is to focus on the education of the youngsters, which makes the museum outstanding in the educational field and diverse activities in Yunnan area. First, the activities in Yunnan Provincial Museum are abundant covering outdoors and indoors, ranging from archaeology exploration to the traditional culture learning and appreciation, which provides multiple choices for visitors and participants more opportunities to join in the museum and culture events, and creates a broader platform for the community to communicate and to share the pleasure moments with each other and to enhance the relationship between families and friends. Rather than just a museum, the activities of Yunnan Provincial Museum brings the vitality to the concrete building, and creates a leisure place for the public, which evokes the enthusiasm of masses to actively engage in the museum events, what’s more to arise their awareness to actively take the responsibility of protecting and carrying forward the culture heritage to the future. Second, the museum launches kinds of programs on the social network, such as the series of historical stories and the Volunteer Reader, which makes full use of the power of these platforms to fuel the running of the museum. Third, in the educational work field for the younger generation, Yunnan Provincial Museum could say the leader and the pilot, which connects the bridge between school education and fieldwork for the younger group to do practice, to exposure to the nature and the real world instead of abstract theory, more important, to evoke the creativity and creative thinking of youngsters, and to nurture their aesthetic and appreciation and compatibility for the differences of the world, and to cultivate their ability to handle complex situations in the real life, rather than to make their heads buried into the pile of books and papers struggling for the technical examinations, and draws a batch of regular younger participants. Meanwhile, Yunnan Provincial Museum pays attention to the remote area to popularize the traditional culture and knowledge to the children and 97
teenagers, which wins positive feedbacks and welcome at local. In the public and younger generation education part, Yunnan Provincial Museum fully plays the educator role to take the burden of spreading the knowledge and culture to the community in an approachable way, and tries to make wider groups involved in the museum activities. --Cultural creativity. With the advent of the new model of culture tourism and heritage, Yunnan Provincial Museum is the pioneer with the support of the government body, taking the first movement in cultural creativity field in the museum circle in Yunnan region, and getting the fruit and achievement, of which the products to some degree are becoming the symbol of Yunnan Province to express the culture to the visitors, and which embraces the great potential cultural creativity market in an advantage place compared with other museums in Yunnan. Moreover, Yunnan Provincial Museum learns the successful models and good ideas from other museums in China, such as the Palace Museum, Shanghai Museum, and actively communicates with foreign countries museums to exchange the idea and to learn the experience. At local, the Yunnan Provincial Museums IP Alliance creates a great platform for the allied museums, and boosts the Yunnan Provincial Museum in the cultural creativity field which can gather and integrate kinds of culture resources of Yunnan land to innovate and update the culture products. --Collections. In term of the quantity of collections in Yunnan Provincial, it holds the most numbers among the local museums, which are regularly changed in the exhibition hall for visitors, so that the public can visit as much as possible the relics. With regard to the quality, it has not a few First Grade Cultural Relics and exquisite collections in Yunnan and even in China, for instance, the Bronze artworks. Therefore, the collections is a strength as well of Yunnan Provincial Museum in the competition with others.
2. Weakness of Yunnan Provincial Museum. As a new and growing museum, there are inevitably weaknesses in the museum in the process of development. --Information Service. The information service of Yunnan Provincial Museum is one of the weaknesses. Although the museum bridges multiple online information platforms 98
for public, there are almost only Chinese language available, which is quite inconvenient for the non-Chinese visitors and will reduce the effects of information spreading. And tourists’ brochures are only available for permanent exhibitions information, which lacks of other information such as the temporary exhibitions introduction and the location guidance. Besides, the management of the official website is another weakness. Visitors can check the information via online platform, but there are quite limited for the them to get further information, and the information of online displays are far more sufficient as well where there are only a few collections available attached with brief introductions on the webpage for public to visit. Moreover, the online displays though show as much as possible exhibitions to public, again, the information of the exhibitions are not enough for visitors, and the effects that the online exhibitions presents, to some content is not good enough for people need to keep clicking the button to visit the exhibition spots. --Exhibition content. Although it was mentioned that the exhibition arrangements of Yunnan Provincial is one of the strengths, it was talking about the scope of the exhibition. When it comes to the depth of the exhibitions, Yunnan Provincial Museum is far to catch the strength compared with other themed museums, such as Yunnan Nationalities Museum and Yunnan Railway Museum in Kunming city. These themed museums focus on one theme to present to public, as a result, the depth of exhibition content is going to deeper than Yunnan Provincial Museum which relatively speaking provides general not the detail information for visitors. In another word, Yunnan Provincial Museum provides diverse exhibitions and displays for the public reaching to almost every aspect and field, but it is shyly to present more detailed and systematic exhibitions to visitors. --Interpretation. Interpretation could be both visual and audio. It could be a historical building, a sign-board, a cup of coffee, and even the decoration of the lavatory in the museum, which rarely means the interpretation of the tour guide or interpreter. In particular in the cultural tourism field, interpretation could happen at anytime and anywhere. Interpretations of heritage according to the mode of content selection for heritage interpretation for visitors Staiff & Bushell, interpretation should meet three levels, the primary interpretations includes visible surfaces, facts and figures and 99
information related to what is being viewed; the second interpretations should reach to the contexts, symbolism and deeper understanding; the tertiary interpretations is going to the world of viewer and the contemporary issues and contexts78. Therefore, it is unfair and absolute to say that interpretations in Yunnan Provincial Museum is good or bad, which in some aspects, for instance, the architecture, the plantation, the interior design and decoration are successfully in interpreting the museum and Yunnan features. Visitors can first be satisfied with the primary interpretations and also the second interpretations as well, even can reach the tertiary interpretations, because the architecture, the plantations and interior design express more than the visible information and facts of the objectives. While the interpretations of exhibitions follows the traditional mode an educational activity which is on the primary interpretation level to provide the basic and general information of what the visitors are viewing, and hardly reaches to the deeper dimension. Whoever the interpreters are professions or volunteers, they normally provide audiences the primary information. Also the time arrangement for each tour is a little bit hurried, if visitors join in the tour with the voluntary interpreters, they hardly can stop their steps to visit the collections carefully, and sometimes the effects of interpretation will reduce due to the insufficient tour time. Moreover, the voluntary groups of interpretation, although are trained as qualified staff, there are still much more space for them to improve their interpretation skills and professional knowledge, and there are differences among each person, which might causes some misunderstanding and confusion for public. --Activity. Activity in Yunnan Provincial Museum indeed is a noticeable point for the community and local people, while it is also the weakness when it comes to the interaction with visitors during the visit. The museum designs interaction activities but quite few for visitors as referred before, such as Q&A, the digital screen, which are far more attractive without highlight and creativity. In another word, these interaction segments designed for visitors fail to lure the eager of visitors to actively engage in, and also fail to arise their deeper feelings and resonances, the key factor to create a better visit experience for visitors, and these interactions provides the same information as interpreters for visitors which might be unnecessary.
78 Lecture, Sept, 30, 2017. 100
--Community engagement. Yunnan Provincial Museum indeed designs and arranges diverse activities and programs for the public and community, and it is without any doubt that the community can engage in the museum events via various activities, but it is to some content negative, that is to say that the community as the participant role engages in the museum events only when the museum holds activities and programs, which is temporary and relatively negative. The community engagement does not exposure to the cultural and deeper level, which is to say that the community only is the participant not the manager and the cooperator of the museum. As it was referred before, culture is a key factor to make a city been vitality, the same as for a museum. Community engagement not only means the participation of community in museum activities, but rather the cooperator actively presenting the community and local culture and folk life to visitors.
3. Opportunities of Yunnan Provincial Museum --Policy and location. In the policy place, first, The Belt and Road Initiative (hereinafter referred as the program) program in the cultural scope, in China connects the gear among the countries and cities along the Road to communicate and to cooperate, which brings great potential and creates numerous opportunities for these cities and countries, coupled with the encouragement of Chinese government to develop the cultural industry and actively supports the cultural creativity industry and museum creativity industry, which obviously fuels the development of culture field and museum. Under such circumstances, as one of the cities on the Road, Yunnan also shares the benefits with others. Yunnan Provincial Museum will step on a broader platform to exposure to wider culture field to explore more cultural resources, and meet more opportunities to do cultural communication with other countries, to exchange and to learn good ideas and experience, and to export Yunnan culture coupled with Chinese culture to the covered areas and the world, also to import the brilliant cultures from other countries. In addition, this plan will boost the cooperation among those cities and countries in culture field to enhance the cultural soft power, which will bring the chances for Yunnan Provincial Museum as well. Furthermore, the support of government to encourage the development of cultural industry is the fertility for Yunnan Provincial Museum in the 101
coming future, seeing in the protection and preservation of traditional culture heritage, cultural inheritance and spreading, cultural update and creativity, and cultural resources exploration and integration. Second, in the economic dimension, the program and the policy will bring the capital to the culture field which includes museums, thus Yunnan Provincial Museum will get more capital support to update and to improve the situation and management of the museum. With regard to the location of Yunnan province, it also creates plenty of opportunities for Yunnan Provincial Museum, which is the bridge between Southeast Asia and China. As a vital culture institution, Yunnan Provincial Museum wins a lot of chances and opportunities to communicate with these countries in the culture field, such as the culture spreading and education to the border staff from Vietnam, Myanmar, Thailand and other ASEAN countries, and is the key platform to connect the culture communication and cooperation with these countries. With the policy support to encourage the culture industry from up to bottom in China, Yunnan Provincial Museum in the coming future, coupled with its advantageous location, will meet more possibilities to explore the new culture cooperation and culture mode in Southeast Asia area, and even drives the culture innovation and update among this region. In addition, the new museum locates in the culture circle of Kunming city neighboring the ancient town of Guandu*********, where the museum could cooperate with other culture institutions and the ancient town to integrate the local community culture into the museum. --Internet+ and cultural creativity industry. As it was referred above, the “Internet+” mode recently blows a strong wind in the culture field, in particular in the museum. Internet giants such as Tencent and Alibaba have already involved in the museum cultural creativity events with museums in China such as the Palace Museum and the National in Beijing, establishing the offline operation center “Cultural Creative China” in Shanghai. This could also be a great potential opportunity for Yunnan Provincial Museum to cooperate with these Internet giants and other platforms to pilot the new culture mode in the southwest of China area and promote the cultural industry and creativity of neighbors. 102
Meanwhile, the various social networks are also the fertile land for the museum creativity. In the past International Museum Day, the National museum together with other several museums in China via the Douyin platform, a quite popular video clips application, makes a video of collections, where all the collections were live, singing, dancing and talking from which they introduce themselves in a funny and down-to- earth way to the visitors. Yunnan Provincial Museum could learn the mode and the idea combining with other local museums to make full use of kinds of social network platforms to do the culture creativity. --History. The History of Yunnan could be both the strength and the opportunity for Yunnan Provincial Museum. The World War I and World War II indeed were the disasters for the whole world, but it also brought the new idea, new technology and foreign culture to Yunnan land, especially in the south of Yunnan province, the border counties and villages between China and Vietnam and Myanmar. During that period, Yunnan and France had frequent communication and exposure to each other, which created a history between Yunnan and France and also culture heritage to Yunnan land. This history is at a linking stage between Yunnan and France, and the past and the future, through which Yunnan Provincial Museum wins more chances to communicate with France in the culture field, and also the resources from France. And Yunnan is one of the earliest provinces to do cooperation with France. The past two weeks saw the celebration of Yunnan-France Cultural week, when Yunnan Provincial Museum arranges two temporary displays of France, and invites the director of the Centre national des arts plastiques and the vice-president of école nationale supérieure des Beaux-arts de Paris to attend the opening ceremony. The relation will glue the cooperation between Yunnan and France, and promote the profound communication and dialogue in culture field.
4. Threats of Yunnan Provincial Museum. The opportunities of Yunnan Provincial Museum if done well, will definitely boost the development of the museum, but at the same time, there will be potential threats coming with the opportunities. --Commercial culture. Facing the diverse and great potential culture industry market, it 103
is not easy to keep the culture not being commercialized, which is not hard to see nowadays in culture tourism field. Especially for a non-profit culture institution, it will be more threatened, if done wrong, the culture will encounter the destroy and damage. Thus, how to develop the culture industry in an appropriate and correct way, and to create the new mode is a great challenge for Yunnan Provincial Museum, and how to spread the culture effectively in the commercial market situation is also not an easy thing for the museum. --Culture assimilation. This is also a potential threat for Yunnan Provincial Museum which exposures to heterogeneous cultures and complex social situations. It will more or less influence the local culture, and even assimilate the local culture to some content. Therefore, as a culture institution, how to protect and to preserve the local culture and to spread it to the masses and the public under such diverse culture circumstances is also an inevitable challenge for the museum. Strength and weakness, and opportunity and threat come with each other, how to balance the relation among them, and to make full use of the advantageous factors to promote the museum sustainably, and to covert the shortages as possible as into the opportunities in the dynamic situations is a long-term working. 104
SWOT ANALYSIS INTERNAL EXTERNAL Strengths Weaknesses Opportunities Threats 1. Location (at 1. Information Service 1. Policy Support Commercial the border (insufficient language (Chinese Culture & between China service) government Culture and Southeast 2. Exhibition Content (in encourages the Assimilation as Asia) terms of depth of development of potential 2. History exhibition) culture industry threats with the (communications 3. Interpretation and creativity) influence of with European 4. Community 2. Internet+ globalization countries in Engagement (hardly Situation contemporary connecting with local (cooperation with time) community) giant e-commerce 3. Exhibition and medium Arrangement (in platforms) terms of the width of exhibitions) 4. Collections (numbers and types) 4. Cultural Creativity (museum alliance) 5. Education Activities (regularly activities for children and teenagers)
Table 1: SWOT ANALYSIS
CHAPTER IV CONCLUSION
Conclusion It is going to arrive at the conclusion of the study of Yunnan Provincial Museum which probably is not complete and covers not all the aspects as the result in the limitation of the study, but it will try as possible as to in a macro scope to go back to see the situations and development in the process. This paper puts wide coverage on the management of Yunnan Provincial Museum, in particular the exhibition management the major content of a museum to serve for public to try as possible as to present the museum for public, and the focus meanwhile is put on “people” dimension which has been getting more and more vital for cultural management and culture tourism field since over the past half century mainly in visitors’ service as well as community engagement management which are the influential elements and factors to decide if a cultural attraction can be sustainable, together with the cultural creativity management which is the fuel and the trend in the culture circle throughout the world to boost the culture spreading and to develop the culture industry. Through the study of the existing situations of Yunnan Provincial Museum, there follows the SWOT analysis based on the study of the museum through which public can get well understanding of the goals, the choices and the plans of the museum. As well, the possible and practical proposals are going to present as the end of this study. As a not young but with a new look culture institution, Yunnan Provincial Museum has celebrated its 67th birthday in 2018, which is on a new culture stage and in the dynamic situation, facing diverse opportunities and challenges as well, and holding its advantages to explore a new approach to adapt the change of the weather in the culture tourism field. There are indeed inevitable shortages in the process of the development which rises some questions: how should the museum tackle these obstacle in the coming days? How should the museum connect with local community and get them involved in? How should the museum be responsible for the local town and citizens and its surroundings? What is the exactly new model for Yunnan Provincial Museum? Is it to follow the way that the other successful museums have walked or to explore a new but unknown way for itself? It is truly hard to give an answer at present, for every museum whatever it is new or old, national or local, comprehensive or themed, is experiencing changes day and night. From the macro environment and policy, to the micro personal factors, every not eye-catching element could be the decisive factor for the museum development. Answers and efforts cannot be seen for the moment but in the passage of time, and there could be more than one answer for each question. Whatever the change will be, museums should always take the responsibility for the place, for the citizens and communities to present them the past, the present and the future, and to unlock more possibilities.
Proposals for Yunnan Provincial Museum This part is going to propose some practical proposals for Yunnan Provincial Museum in the coming future to make the museum icing on the cake. --Digital platforms. Since the “Internet+” idea and policy are now spread in the whole China especially focusing on the culture field, Yunnan Provincial Museum should 2
establish a more complete digital information service system, which first should set the digital map system for visitors to download and easily check the position, second should complete the information of all the exhibitions such as the introduction and related background for visitors to know what exactly they are visiting and will visit, and appointment service in multiple languages as possible as the museum can provide, third should set up online “Forum Feedback” which will be much more easier and more effective to check and collect the comments and opinions from visitors than the comment cards. --Cultural creativity products. For a better and impressive visit experience, the new cultural creativity store in Yunnan Provincial Museum could provide visitors a platform to design their own unique souvenirs and to make by themselves, and also the museum could open the online souvenir store for masses and consumers to customize their products of Yunnan Provincial Museum. The culture creativity should make more masses and visitors participated in rather than a few people. There are one thousand ideas in one thousand visitors’ minds, which are probably all the sources of creative and brilliant ideas. --Exhibition arrangement. To meet various demands of visitors with diverse backgrounds and expectations for the museum visit, Yunnan Provincial Museum could try to arrange the exhibitions and displays separately for local and non-local visitors, which should collect the feedbacks and listen the voice from the public. For the local group, the focus should put on the local community culture and ordinary life of residents which will arise the resonances among the local visitors, coupled with the foreign culture to promote the ability to appreciate and to embrace the difference and the diversity. In terms of non-local visitors, the museum should pay attention to spread local culture and history to them to know and understand the Yunnan. Even, the museum could try to arrange the niche exhibitions based on the different age groups, genders etc. which will be a possibility to explore the new running mode in the coming future. --Interaction activities. The interaction activities for visitors in the exhibition halls could be more diverse. For instance, in the Ancient Yunnan exhibition, instead of Q&A cards and the dinosaur drawing parts for children, the museum could design an activity aiming for the younger children to adventure in the forest and to explore the dinosaur fossils, which will be more attractive to lure the interests and participations of visitors. As well, in the other exhibitions, the curator could make full use of the exhibition space to set the scenes experience activity for public, which could be the VR experience. For the Buddhism exhibition, it could learn the experience from Mogao Grottoes of Dunhuang which uses 3D technology to presents visitors a brilliant panoramic view of the original murals in the grottoes, where Yunnan Provincial Museum also could uses this technology to provide public a visual feast rather than the flat copied murals. --Community engagement. A museum which is responsible for the landscape undertakes at the same time the interpretation center of heritage and territory, promoting its knowledge and its symbols making inhabitants and visitors conscious of their constituent values and encouraging them to preserve, promote and enrich it. Involving the museums in the management and care of the cultural landscape means to develop their natural vocation, by extending their responsibility from their collections to the cultural heritage and surroundings: their local towns, villages and communities. To develop this it will be necessary, whether the conditions are met, for museums not only to assume the role of regional offices, for active protection, but also to become centers 3
for interpretation of their territory by extending their mission. 79 They should develop their activities in the open field of cultural heritage and landscape that surrounds them and of which they may become responsible, to varying degrees. Thus, the museum should actively connect with local community to seek the possibilities to make the museum alive, where the local community should be taken into consider in the museum events. Museum managers could provide a space for local residents to present their daily life and to share their stories with visitors. It could be the stuff that the community use in their ordinary life but are typical. Such as the exhibitions in the Siam Museum in Bangkok, Thailand, which presents the very typical Thai elements, seeing in the plastics with Thai milk tea, the bus tickets and tickets’ boxes, the local noodles etc. All of these stuff can be seen and used and ate every day by people and visitors wherever they are, which will provide visitors a feeling of sincere and warm, and meanwhile to present the real local culture to the visitors. Meanwhile, there are various minority traditional customs and unique festivals which could be a possible way to show the local culture to public and get people involved in.
Notes: * Qin is a seven-stringed plucked instrument in some ways similar to the zither. ** Chinese characters with the meaning of a place (room or space) where a group of knowledgeable and elegant people get together to appreciate, and identify cultural relics, and share their ideas.
79 The Siena Charter, Museum and Cultural Landscape, ICOM, 2014, pp.2-3. 4
*** 5A is one of and the best of the five standards of China National Tourist Attractions Quality Evaluation Committee, which from A, AA, AAA, AAAA, AAAAA. **** The Cultural Revolution starts from 1966 to 1976. ***** Both of them are Chinese mutual social tools as Facebook and What’s up or Line. ******The name is translated from the pronunciation of Chinese, because there is no exactly original name on the Internet. ******* “As part of this trend, so-called "red tourism" has recently experienced a noteworthy development in China since 2004. With the support of the communist government, the heritage of the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) history, including past revolutionary events, monuments, relics, residences of former communist leaders, and other relevant heritage objects, are exploited and promoted for Chinese domestic tourists.” Yiping Li and Zhiyi Hu, Red Tourism in China, Journal of China Tourism Research, 4, 2008, p.157. ******** Chinese blessed word means to bless one that there is nothing can hurt him/her. ********* It is renowned for the Buddhist Tower established in the Yuan Dynasty.
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VITA
VITA
NAME LIU SHENGYU
DATE OF BIRTH 23 June 1991
PLACE OF BIRTH Yuxi city, Yunnan Province, China
INSTITUTIONS Wuhan Sports University ATTENDED HOME ADDRESS 17th Rd, Hongta district, Yuxi city, Yunnan Province, China PUBLICATION No
AWARD RECEIVED Scholarship in 2011.